Exhibition

Jewish films made between 1946 and 1949 in Yiddish and Hebrew were initially produced by the film section of the Culture and Propaganda Department of the Central Committee of Jews in Poland (CKŻP). After its liquidation, beginning in February 1948, they were produced under the banner of the Kinor film cooperative. Among the board members of the cooperative was Shaul Goskind, a prewar film producer who initiated postwar Yiddish film production. The cooperative was shut down at the turn of the year 1949/50. The Jewish filmmakers associated with Kinor produced five complete documentaries and one feature film during this period.

Jewish films, produced both on commission by CKŻP and at the request of other organizations (including Zionist ones), did not become part of the collective Jewish memory of the ghetto or of postwar Jewish life because they were never widely distributed, neither in Poland nor abroad. As soon as they were no longer needed, often immediately after being shown in closed screenings as part of “urgent actions,” they were often censored, shelved, and forgotten.