A piece of heaven

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Television series
Original title A piece of heaven
Country of production Germany
original language German
year 1982
Production
company		 Bavaria Atelier GmbH
length 8 × 60 and 2 × 115 minutes
Episodes 10 in 1 season
genre drama
Director Franz Peter Wirth
idea Günter Kunert based on a novel by Leo Lehmann
music Eugene Thomass
camera Gernot Roll
First broadcast April 19, 1982 on German television
occupation

Main actor:

Supporting cast:

A piece of heaven is a German television series in ten parts by Franz Peter Wirth from 1982 with Dana Vávrová and Peter Bongartz , based on the book A square of sky , published in 1964 . The recollections of a childhood , an autobiography by Janina David , published in 1981 as A Piece of Heaven. Memories of a Childhood in German appeared.

background

The series documents the childhood story of the Jewish girl Janina Dawidowicz in Poland during the Second World War . The title of the book alludes to the apartments in the ghetto, in which the number of residents was calculated according to the windows. The window allowed Janina to escape the cramped living conditions in the room and, despite the narrow inner courtyard, to be able to see a piece of the sky.

The TV multi-part first appeared on ARD on April 19, 1982. From April 1982 to June 1982, eight episodes were published each 60 minutes in length. Two new episodes were shown in November 1986, each with a length of 115 minutes.

action

The eight parts have the following titles and cover the following years:

No. title Place u. Years length German premiere
1. The end of peace Kalisch 1939 58 minutes April 19, 1982, ARD
2. The forbidden city Kalisch 1939 58 minutes April 26, 1982, ARD
3. Trapped in the ghetto Warsaw Ghetto 1940/41 58 minutes May 3, 1982, ARD
4th The final solution Warsaw Ghetto 1942 58 minutes May 10, 1982, ARD
5. Farewell to childhood Warsaw Ghetto 1943 58 minutes May 17, 1982, ARD
6th Refuge in the monastery Warsaw 1943 58 minutes May 24, 1982, ARD
7th Battle for Warsaw Warsaw 1944 58 minutes June 6, 1982, ARD
8th. The last days of the war In the country 1944 58 minutes June 7, 1982, ARD

Episode 1 (The End of Peace)

In Kalisch

Marek Dawidowicz lives with his wife Celia and their nine-year-old daughter Janina in Kalisch . They employ the maid Stefa. Erich Grabowski and his wife Lydia take a photograph of Janina for their grandparents. Erich's father is German, Erich himself is a Pole. Lydia expresses the wish to have a pretty little daughter just like Janina. Celia sends Janina with housemaid Stefa to Mrs. Wolfska - an older housemaid - in the country during the summer holidays. There Janina falls in love with the Catholic boy Tadek. Together they romp through the woods, playing Indians. The parents agree to Janina's friendship with a Christian. Marek allows Tadek to come to the cinema when the film Snow White is shown there. Janina is supposed to promise Tadek that she will become Catholic when she gets older.

Outbreak of war, escape to Lodz and Warsaw

In the country, Janina learns that the war has broken out. Celia's brother Kuba joins the Polish army. Janina, Celia and the grandparents take the train to Lodz, to the apartment of a cousin Helen, who has already fled further inland. Grandfather listens to the radio every day. Everyone hopes that the Polish army will win.

On the morning of September 1, 1939, the radio reported the invasion of German troops. Marek returns to his family; Janina senses his coming a few moments earlier. Marek wants his family to move further east. So the family moves to Warsaw, to Marek's sister Mirijam and her cousin Siggi of the same age, a diabetic. New units are to be formed outside of Warsaw, for which the mayor of the city calls on all citizens. Marek answers again because he used to be a soldier. When Warsaw is bombed, grandfather takes Celia and Janina to his air raid shelter. There Janina experiences for the first time how Celia prays in Hebrew: " Schma Israel, adonaj elohejnu, adonaj ächad ".

Taking Warsaw and returning to Kalisch

Kalisz

When Warsaw is taken, the grandparents, Celia and Janina want to return to Kalisch. Since the girl becomes seriously ill on the way, grandfather takes Celia and Janina up with a Jewish innkeeper. There she experiences for the first time how Shabbat is celebrated and Yiddish is spoken. When he arrived in Kalisch, the veterinarian, Mr. Junge, revealed himself to Celia as an "Reich German", which entitles him to buy property in Poland. He would like to purchase Celia's apartment through an assignment agreement. Celia refuses and throws the man out of her apartment. The grandparents tell Celia that they are thrown out of the house and are not allowed to take anything with them. Celia later has to see how the vet buys the apartment and leaves Kalisch with her daughter. After the end of the war, Mr. Junge hangs himself in the attic and the caretaker Stanislaw proudly presents Janina the rope with which the vet hanged himself.

Episode 2 (The Forbidden City)

In Kalisch

Celia and Janina have to watch as the grandparents' house is cleared. The grandparents then move into the Kowalski mill. Janina is playing the piano at home, her mother is touching a cake when German soldiers ring the bell. You have to go down to the street. All the Jews from Kalisch are rounded up and brought to a farm. By chance they find an escape route in the shed at the back of the courtyard. They escape and return to the apartment. The caretaker and the sons lever out the door, which has now been sealed, and Nina is there. Celia and daughter take as much as they can. The caretaker organizes a cab and mother and daughter drive to the mill to see their grandparents.

In Warsaw with the Gold family

Warsaw Great Synagogue

A few days later Celia and Janina go to Warsaw with their grandparents. They hope to go underground there. They find shelter in Mrs. Gold's apartment, who shares an apartment with her son Simon and daughter-in-law Sarah. They make a living running a lamp shop and wool. There the Davidowicz family received Marek's letter from Russian-occupied Poland. He sends someone to take Celia and Janina across the border to Ukraine and then across the Urals. You reject the proposal because the winter of 1940 does not want to end. Before the ghetto arises, Marek returns to them. Janina senses his coming a few moments before. The dialogue that the two lead a little later shows how close the bond between father and daughter is. It shows that Janina can feel the presence of her father: Marek says: "When I wandered through Warsaw looking for you, I called your name all day." And Janina replies: "Yes, I know I heard you ”.

Celia and Janina in the Warsaw City Park

Warsaw City Park is forbidden to Jews. Nevertheless, Celia and Janina go there because Celia thinks Janina needs fresh air. But first they take off the armband with the Star of David. In the city park they sit on a bench that Jews are forbidden to sit on. A lady is sitting there, crocheting and chatting with Celia. However, when she notices how frightened Celia and Janina react to German soldiers, she promptly gets up, calls her two children - Christina and Jaschek - and leaves. Celia and Janina leave the park disturbed. It should be the last time that they visit a park.

Janina plays the main role in Snow White

Janina rehearses the play Snow White with the Gold family , where she plays the leading role. Mrs. Katz is the guest of Mrs. Gold. While Janina is rehearsing, Celia tailors the corset for Janina. Mrs. Gold criticizes Celia sewing a black corset with red suspenders for her daughter . Celia doesn't find anything about it, but when Snow White, played by Janina, slides dead to the ground during the performance, the dress falls above the thighs and the red suspenders can be seen. The whole hall roars with laughter. Then the prince appears who kisses Snow White awake. Janina then dances through the whole hall and sings the song by Herta Mayen "Come my prince to me first ... and take me away from here ... we both move into the heavenly castle" from the then famous movie Snow White . Mrs. Katz is enthusiastic about Janina's acting and especially about Celia, who reminds her of her daughter Ruth in America. Mrs. Katz invites Celia and her family to move in with her.

"Epidemic Walls"

In the summer of 1941 the so-called “epidemic protective walls” were built around the ghetto. The quarter is increasingly being closed off from the outside world. Hunger and poverty are the result.

Janina's father works for the Jewish ghetto police

At home, Celia and Marek's dissatisfaction grows. Celia insults her husband because he has not yet found a job and she has to constantly ask her mother for money and they have to live with the Gold family with their grandparents. Since Marek used to be a soldier and knows how to handle weapons, he finally finds a job with the Jewish ghetto police . Celia reacts to this with horror. He just says to her: “One day you will be grateful for it.” With this, he alludes to the indispensability of the Jewish security service as functionaries of the German occupying power.

Episode 3 (Trapped in the Ghetto)

Katz and Rachel family

In 1940/1941 Marek, Celia and Janina move into a new apartment in the now created ghetto, where they live huddled together in a room with a view of the backyard. If you look straight up out of the window, you can still see a piece of sky above the roofs of the courtyard. Janina thinks that the piece of heaven brings a bit of color, happiness and thus hope into her life: "It gets bluer the longer you look up." Janina later expresses this thought in an essay on the Renaissance in Europe.

The Katz couple live in the main room. Since Jews are no longer allowed to work for Poland, Mr. Katz loses his job and Mrs. Katz is increasingly angry. Their roars and screams can be heard constantly in the Dawidowicz's back room. Out of pity, Frau Katz took in young Rachel, who no longer has any parents.

Janina's circle of friends - Yola, Tosia and Cufka

Janina's circle of friends includes the rebellious Yola, the faithful Tosia - with whom she attends classes with Miss Bloch - and the pretty Chufka who sells sweets. Nina closes blood brotherhood with Tosha. They both cut each other's fingers with a razor blade, suck each other's blood and hug and then swear “friendship to the grave”. Nina, Tosha and Yola regularly go to Fraulein Bloch, who she and other children teach. Lessons are held alternately in the students' apartments. Since Jewish schools are forbidden, they fear betrayal and discovery and are frightened every time the doorbell rings. They then hide the school supplies. Miss Bloch does sex education by explaining pistils and the stamens of the flower. When Yola questions her critically, she is reprimanded by the teacher. After school, Yola also gives sex education, starting with the difference between the normal kiss and the sensual kiss . When Nina doesn't pay attention and scratches her hair, she gets a bad look from Yola. In the evening Nina cannot sleep and cries because she is afraid of revealing what she has learned in her sleep . Then her father tells her the fairy tale about the red spark that Janina will later tell the little girls in the monastery.

November 1940 the gates of the ghetto are closed and hundreds of thousands of people are driven into the ghetto.

Chufka as an example of the consequences of typhus

In addition to the rebellious Yola and the loyal Tosia, the pretty Chufka is also one of Janina's circle of friends. Chufka is sitting in an arcade behind a table and sells sweets and caramels. Janina is a regular customer of her and buys from her on credit. When Janina appears at Chufka, she just says sadly: "You have no more credit with me". Janina only says: "I haven't eaten a piece for two weeks". Chufka looks in her notebook, in which she makes a note of all the debtors, and corrects Janina: "Your mother received one a few days ago and has not yet paid." Janina begs: "We have no money ...!" The saleswoman only replies: "Then you shouldn't eat sweets either ...". Janina recalls their friendship and reveals above all her admiration for Chufka's hair: “Your blonde hair looks beautiful Chufka!” Chufka beams: “I know.” Janina repeats her opinion in front of all the other girls gathered and asks the group: “Are Her hair isn't beautiful? ”They all nod in confirmation. Chufka takes out a caramel and pushes it towards Janina. Janina is speechless at first and looks at her questioningly. Chufka asks her to take the candy and says: "Take it!" Chufka and Janina look at each other, smile and beam at each other. Janina thanks her quickly and just asks: "And don't tell my father that we owe you". Chufka nods to her and smiles. Chufka is not only one of Janina's small circle of friends in the Warsaw ghetto, it is also the exemplary case of typhus and its side effects that Janina describes in detail in the film: “The summer was very hot. With the increasing heat, typhus developed into an epidemic, the death rate increased by every month ... Cufka also fell ill, although she survived the disease, her golden hair fell out in tufts. ”This is how Janina describes her friend as she looks at her as she passes by. Chufka is now too embarrassed to speak to her. Chufka looks furtively at her friend, only to lower her gaze immediately. During the resettlement operation on July 22nd, 1942, Janina had to see her friend with the "golden hair" being deported to the East while she was spared as a member of a ghetto police officer. Later, when Janina meets Sarah in the children's home, she notices how the girl refuses to have her head shaved. She suspects that Sarah, like herself, is afraid of it because it reminds her of the typhus sufferers in the Warsaw ghetto whose hair had to be shaved.

Marek's girlfriend - Lydia

In the ghetto you get a visit from Lydia, whom Marek knows from the pre-war period. Lydia is still in love with Marek, although she is now married to Erich Grabowsky and has two sons, Paul and Thomeck. Since the Dawidowicz family has no money, they cannot get out of the ghetto. To do this, they needed false papers, which are expensive. Lydia indicates the final solution in a few words: “The Germans have a certain plan. Do you think they're waiting for you all to die of typhus? It's horrible what's going to happen. ”Lydia offers to take Janina in for Christmas.

poverty

Poverty in the ghetto is increasing. So Celia has to take her daughter to the ophthalmologist. Janina has ruined her eyes because she studies by candlelight at night. Celia hopes the doctor will write the prescription for free. When he insists on paying the bill anyway, Celia gives him what she has with her.

The backyard is full of people who beg, peddle or hire themselves out as showmen. The children are among others interested in Elias, a former Talmudic scholar who lives with his sisters but is excluded from them at night. Because he is slowly starving to death, he then howls like an air raid siren. For fun, the children drift and beat him until he screams like a siren.

In the spring of 1941, the ghetto's overpopulation increases. There are over 500,000 people. More Jewish people come to the ghetto, coming from Germany, Czechoslovakia and the Polish provinces in overcrowded freight trains to Warsaw.

Janina describes the various stages of the impoverishment of the newcomers in the ghetto, how they arrive there, live and perish in misery. Since they can neither get an apartment nor a job, they have to live in the streets of the ghetto and beg there.

As the first stage of impoverishment, Nina describes the situation of the newcomers who are standing in the streets, begging and trying to cope with their new situation: “How they stood there, often well dressed, how embarrassed and silent, as if they had only stopped for a moment to look around, this posture soon broke, and they began to hold passers-by by the sleeve, frightened at their own boldness and immediately stammering apologies. "

According to Janina, the second stage of impoverishment is reached when they can no longer stand upright because of their weakness. Then they would sit on the sidewalk and lean against the wall. In the meantime, their good clothes have already been exchanged and the newcomers are only dressed in rags. Their faces are rigid with masks. Hunger turns them into skeletal beings with swollen hunger bellies that collapse at some point. The corpses were immediately stripped of their clothes and covered with newspapers that were weighed down with bricks. So these are on the street ready for removal. They are picked up in the morning.

Nina wonders if begging is the beginning of the end and asks herself the question: "If someone who was well dressed when he has to beg, was that the first step?" The only thing she could have wept over with pity is a tall one Man from Germany. He has a red blanket around his shoulders and is walking through the streets of the ghetto, lost in his dreams. The girl compares him to a stray king with a purple cloak in exile who seeks asylum far from his country.

When Janina visits her grandparents one evening, she hears people singing on the street. They are beggars who are allowed to return to the asylum at the end of the street at 6 p.m. They sing: "six o'clock in the evening and everything is fine".

Episode 4 (The Final Solution)

Lydia works for the resistance

On March 19, 1941, Janina celebrates her birthday at Lydia Grabowska's. Lydia has fun with a German officer and a captain with a knight's cross. The officer discovers Janina who is hiding in the kitchen. Lydia pretends to be Erich's niece. The soldiers do not believe Lydia, but ask the girl to dance. When Janina returns to the ghetto, she tells her best friend Tosia how Lydia befriends German soldiers. Nina explains that Lydia works for the Jewish resistance. She warns those affected if they are about to be arrested by the German soldiers. Tosia also wants to get out of the ghetto. At the end of October 1941 the ghetto was reduced by a few streets and the overpopulation of the ghetto increased.

Rachel

While Janina is self-taught , she befriends Rachel. Since Rachel is always hungry, she secretly steals Mrs. Katz's hidden groceries. These are hidden in the living room cupboard, which is locked with a lock curtain. Rachel uses a knife to pry the hinges open. Janina is doing dope. When Mrs. Katz catches the two, Rachel accuses Janina's mother. Mrs. Katz calls the rabbinical court, which then meets in the house. In the absence of evidence, both are acquitted. Rachel is still sitting on a packed suitcase full of trousseau and waiting for her fiancé, who has left her to go to South America.

Marek and Celia's relatives

While Marek's family is poor, Celia's family is prosperous in the Warsaw ghetto. Marek's sister Miriam lives in the poorer part of the ghetto. Her son Siggi, a diabetic, died in the spring of 1942 because the insulin they bought was pure water. Celia's sister Lola, on the other hand, lives with husband Georg and son Richard in the best part of the Warsaw ghetto. Richard is saved from reality and is not allowed on the street. Richard is currently learning Greek and is only talking in that language. Marek first criticized his isolated way of life, and replied to it in Greek. The families are speechless.

Stories against hopelessness

Stories against hopelessness: Talmud scholars tell a story while singing
Yola criticizes the fact that the residents still went to restaurants, although they had to step over corpses ...

In order to cope with the hopeless situation, people flee in illusions or in cynical realism and tell each other stories against the hopelessness.

Janina gives herself completely to illusions and writes an essay: “The reason why the Renaissance was the most wonderful time in European history, because it brought hope where there was none and color in a world that no longer had any”. After the class, Yola criticizes the unworldly attitude of the essay, the fear of the people and the unrealistic attitude of the inhabitants of the ghetto that they still went to restaurants even though they had to step over corpses: “Is there still hope for us? The Jews are being wiped out by the Germans and they are still helping them with this [...] we are all still being slaughtered [...] There is nothing that can be done. You can't change people. We are all wild, take pity for the animals. "

One day a Talmud scholar appears in the backyard and tells the Jewish children a singing story that is supposed to put the hopelessness of the ghetto residents in perspective in view of the indescribable suffering of a Talmud scholar from Vilnius:

I'll sing you a song about torment,
once upon a time there was a scholar from Vilna,
he had only half a lung,
with unmarried daughters,
his wife fell and died,
pitying the scholar from Vilna.

He traveled every day,
but robbers ambushed him.
on the highway to Lublin they opened his skull with the rusty ax,
but all the Talmud stories that he had in mind
flew up to the sky and every star that you see twinkling in the sky is one of his stories.

Celia, too, gives herself completely to illusions. She raves about various operas such as La Bohème and El Niño . She describes how in Rosenkavalier the young nobleman strides across the stage to hand Sophie a silver rose.

Resettlement - July 22, 1942

On July 22, 1942, the ghetto was enclosed by Ukrainian and Baltic SS units as part of an "action". 6000 Jews are supposed to be resettled in the east every day. As a member of a ghetto policeman, the David family is saved from deportation. Bread and jam are offered to those who volunteer for resettlement. Rachel, who also lives in the Katz family's apartment, accepts the offer and voluntarily queues at the transshipment point.

Episode 5 (Farewell to Childhood)

Warsaw Umschlagplatz: Bread and jam were offered there to those who volunteered for resettlement.

In 1942, the family lived in a Warsaw building whose residents were relocated on July 22, 1942. Policemen and their families - like the Davidovich family and other indispensable people - now live in this block. Marek's sister Mirijam finds shelter with Janina's family for a short time, but Mirijam has not wanted to live since Siggi's death. The Jewish children of the ghetto police families know about the resettlement actions and play shooting and gassing in the backyards. When Janina's grandparents are supposed to be given a number to protect them from deportation, someone else beats them. Janina's aunt and grandparents are deported. In parting, grandfather kisses Janina's hand. How important this kiss goodbye was reveals the description of the author Janina David: "All day I held my hand around this kiss like an inestimable treasure". Since the children do not receive a number, Janina always has to be hidden during house searches.

Resettlement - September 21, 1942/3. October 1942

On the Day of Atonement on September 21, 1942, the police and their families were also deported. Janina's family manage to escape. They find shelter in another apartment. On the same evening a black marketeer appears with his wife. With connections and money, you have received all the IDs and papers you need to flee to Turkey. The Dawidowicz family receives the address and key for the black marketer's apartment, where there is “enough to shout [Yiddish for food]” and where they then live. On October 3, 1942, the first stage of the resettlement campaign ended. The Dawidowicz family lives in the black marketeer's apartment with two other families, the Beatos and the Schereks. The women work during the day in bombed houses to remove the rubble and Marek as a police officer. One evening Marek brings his daughter a letter from Tosha in which Janina learns that Yola was shot by a soldier while trying to escape. At Marek's birthday party, Janina compares her father to Ivan the Terrible. Marek replies that maybe only Nina will see the next year and then "will hopefully remember her father more happily".

Resettlement - January 18, 1943/22. January 1943

On January 18, 1943, the family is to be brought to the Umschlagplatz. They flee and hide. In a street, Janina's father puts on a police hat. When the three are spoken to by a soldier, he pretends to have caught the two women on the run. After being asked by the soldier whether he has a special ID, he replies: “I am a police officer. I caught them both! ”The soldier then lets them stand. The family can hide. The action is surprisingly called off. ZOB fighters successfully put up resistance. The family returns to their old apartment.

Jewish fighting organization

Since Marek used to be a soldier, then a member of the Polish Army, and later a member of the Red Army and then the Jewish Ghetto Police, he knows how to use weapons. Marek says: “Something is brewing here, you organize the resistance. The next time there is fighting. Thank God. This time ours have already shot a few times, if I get a rifle in their hands then… ”With this, Marek alludes to the armed, Jewish resistance of the ZOB on January 18, 1943. He too would like to take part in the ZOB.

Celia only says: "You heard what your father said ... There will be a fight this time."

Janina leaves the Warsaw ghetto

Marek is working outside again in the escort service and has got in touch with Erich, who is supposed to take Nina. The mother tries to convince the child to leave the ghetto alone. “Remember how afraid you were during the air raids!” The parents reassure the child that they will soon follow and ask their child to understand their own situation: “Everything is much easier for us when we know that you are are safe ”. Shortly before leaving, the mother wants to explain to the girl, but Nina says that this is no longer necessary. When they say goodbye, mother and daughter cry and Nina gives her mother a necklace with a small gold disc with the word “ Schaddai ” in Hebrew on it in a wreath of laurel leaves . Before the war, the necklace was a present from grandfather to granddaughter. At the exit of the ghetto she is passed off as the daughter of a worker and is smuggled out of the ghetto on the workers' transport. Outside of Warsaw the car stops and Nina now has to say goodbye to her father. In the middle of a snow-covered landscape on an early winter morning, she now stands in the forest and waits. Erich Grabowski appears a little later. He takes his dog out and walks through the forest. He briefly greets Nina, like a stranger, looks around, picks up the dog, turns around and walks back quickly without even looking at Nina. After he has run about fifty meters ahead, she follows him. Then she lives with the Grabowsky family.

Episode 6 (Refuge in the Monastery)

The destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto

Janina managed to escape from the Warsaw ghetto and now lives hidden with the Grabowski family.

Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto April 19, 1943/16. May 1943 - Janina's father called

Before the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto (April 19, 1943/May 16, 1943) breaks out, Marek can reach his daughter by phone and tell her that he and Celia are fine. It is the last message from Janina's mother.

Then the uprising breaks out in the Warsaw ghetto. Women who bring food to the Grabowsky are critical of the uprising in the ghetto: “This is a real war in the ghetto [...] have you ever heard that a Jew is fighting? Not me! [...] What does that help you? There are a few more German tanks coming [...] that's the only good thing about the Germans is that they get rid of the Jews! "

Lydia leaves Erich

Lydia is flirting with German officers again. She increasingly feels that Erich and the children are a burden. She leaves Erich and the children. She gives the reason that a woman who is not admired will perish and that she wants to be a woman again. Erich takes care of the children with great devotion. But Janina is in mortal danger. Lydia bragged to the German officers that she had adopted a Jewish girl as her daughter. One day the Grabowsky family received a call that the housemaid Sophia answered. Sophie is supposed to tell Lydia that if she has a Jewish child that is her business, but if she continues to brag about it, action will have to be taken against her. Janina is scared to death. When Lydia comes home, she explains to Janina that she has risked her life for Janina and that of her children. Lydia takes the crying girl on her lap and holds Janina in her arms.

Escape to a rich monastery 30 km from Warsaw

For security reasons, Erich wants to hide Janina. Erich Janina got a new birth certificate with a new name. Janina's new name is therefore Danuta Theresa Makowska called Danka. Janina goes to the rich monastery of the family of St. Mary outside of Warsaw. Erich reminds her that no one in the monastery is allowed to find out who she really is. The mother superior receives the child warmly but strictly. Sister Margareta, who teaches geography and mathematics, admires Janina's extensive knowledge, which the child has self-taught, and gives her the writing material herself. Alicia, a classmate who has striking red hair herself, is Janina's first friend in the monastery. Alicia comforts her wherever she can.

"Jewish appearance"

In the monastery, Janina is promptly asked about her black hair by her classmates. Rutka says: “We don't have anyone in the monastery who has black hair like you!” Even Sister Ludovika speaks to Janina about her black hair and associates it with being foreign: “You have unusually dark hair, and there are so many strangers these days ! ”There is a rumor that Janina could be Jewish. So she is asked after the lesson on the pretext: “The girls say you are Jewish. That's not correct? Do you swear? ”Janina has to swear that she is not Jewish. The rumors and suspicions still don't stop. Even during a game, Janina is asked about her supposedly Jewish appearance. Krysia asks what Janina would look like and points her finger at Janina. She boldly replies: “I know how I look, I look like a Jew!” The other classmates deny this and say that Janina looks like a Spaniard. Krysia agrees. Janina then hugs Krysia. She found a new friend in Krysia.

Letter from Janina's father postmarked Lublin

After the rebellion in the Jewish ghetto is put down, Erich receives a letter from Marek. Erich meets Janina in the convent school outside Warsaw to inform her about the letter and says that her father is going to hide. She asks if Marek would be hiding in Warsaw. Erich just says that the postmark is from another city, Lublin. Janina then thinks that her father is not in hiding, but is in the Majidanek concentration camp and had a letter smuggled out, which was then sent by post to the nearest town - Lublin. Janina only says when she hears that the postmark from Lublin is: "Not far from Lublin [...] is a place [...] Majdanek ". Janina is alluding to the Majdanek camp near the city of Lublin, whose name comes from the Lublin district of Majdan Tatarski. When Janina inquires about her mother, Erich says that they have been separated. He left the letter at home for security reasons.

Episode 7 (Battle for Warsaw)

Escape to a poor convent school in Warsaw

After Erich is interrogated by the Gestapo, Sister Monika takes the 13-year-old girl to another children's home of the order. It is a poorer house in the middle of the city of Warsaw. Sister Monika regrets Janina's sudden departure. She especially admires the child's beautiful voice; Janina sang in the choir and sister Monika played the organ.

Krysia

Janina's friend Krysia from the richer monastery outside Warsaw sends her a letter to the monastery where Janina is now. She describes that a few hours later the Gestapo appeared in Kloster and looked for her. But nobody told the Gestapo where Nina is now.

Jitzchiks

In contrast to the rich monastery outside of Warsaw, Janina is not called a Jew because of her appearance. There are only stories of a general kind here. When she arrives, Janina is asked: “Do you know what’s out there?” When she says no to the question, she is told: “There were the Jitzchiks who come out at night [...] ghosts , they whine and always say '' A chava, A chava, A chava '. "Everyone laughs. Janina too.

Folk dance group

In the monastery there is a group of girls who come from a children's home in the south of Poland and have performed folk dances. Before the war, they performed everywhere on Sundays. The children's home was burned down by a gang of Ukrainians. The Ukrainians raped and murdered five of the older girls. Vera survived the Ukrainian attack because she was a housemaid in the city at the time. The others survived because they were hiding in the forest. Then they hid the murdered girls behind the house.

Stories

In contrast to the rich monastery, the girls here don't have to be quiet right away, they are also allowed to tell stories to fall asleep. Here Janina tells the other girls the fairy tale of the little red spark, which started to glow and glow when it developed a fever. However, this was not desired because of the blackout in times of war. She tells a different story of Red Funers as they wait in the cellars for the Warsaw Uprising to end. One summer morning, when the red fever on a boat in the sea got very wet from rain, she got a fever again. Now it burns a hole in the boat and melts a nail.

Mother Superior

In contrast to the other monastery, Janina doesn't have to kneel down here and kiss the woman's hand. The mother superior hugs her and kisses her forehead. She greets them: "It is good that you are here with us, my child." The mother superior later informs her that her uncle does not want to know where she is. This applies in the event that he is forced to do so again by the Gestapo. To reveal Janina's whereabouts. She also explains that Erich makes donations to the monastery. This is all the more important because the older girls no longer receive food cards from the German occupying power. The German authorities made it a condition that the young women should go to Germany to work. When the Mother Superior refused, they no longer received any cards. On August 1, 1944, she told the girl that her uncle had to go into hiding. Janina can therefore no longer see him for a long time.

Sister Zofia

Sister Zofia enters the bedroom of the house and asks her in private if she has been baptized. When Janina doesn't answer, she draws her own conclusions, but asks the child to keep this a secret: “Well not, we will have to come up with something. Don't tell the others. ”Zofia admires Janina's interest in the natural sciences and lends her the book: The Life Story of Pasteur and the Microbe Hunter . She herself reluctantly teaches biology because she cannot bear the illnesses of others. Janina tells Sister Sofia about her home, about Celia and the maid Stefa, about the Kowalski mill, about the park, about her father, about moving to Warsaw, about Marek's return, about life in the ghetto, about Marek's illness, about hunger, about the beggars who die every day in the streets of the ghetto, from poor Rachel from crazy Elias, from Umschlagplatz and her escape from the ghetto.

Sarah - shaved heads as an example of the consequences of typhus

One day Janina is approached and asked for her help because there is a newcomer to the monastery: “We have a new one […] something is wrong with her […] you can't get a word out of her. Sister Zofia says you should take care of her. ”The little girl is called a“ crooked nose ”by her peers and is beaten up. Janina protects the child. “Anyone who calls out such names after her, I'll give them green and blue,” Janina yells at the group of children who have surrounded “crooked nose”. When the child's hair is to be cut, Janina fights for the newcomer and tries to keep her beautiful hair. Sister Adele criticizes the loyalty and solidarity of the Jewish girls for one another: “Your arrogance! What do you imagine ?! You! ”When the child later doesn't want to eat, Janina feeds it like a toddler. When it starts to eat on its own, everyone is amazed. When the little girl got the flu, Janina was supposed to take care of her. In doing so, she reveals to her that her real name is Sarah. Janina notices how the girl refuses to have her head shaved. She suspects that Sarah, like herself, is afraid of it because it reminds her of the typhus sufferers in the Warsaw ghetto whose hair had to be shaved.

Warsaw Uprising

Urban areas controlled by the Polish resistance fighters August 4, 1944

In August 1944 the Russian front was drawing closer when the uprising of the Polish resistance fighters broke out in Warsaw . Since there is fierce fighting outside, the residents of the monastery take refuge in the cellars. German soldiers occupy the district in which the monastery school is located. A German Catholic officer leads children and nuns out of the burning Warsaw.

Episode 8 (The Last Days of the War)

Escape to the monastery in Lomno, 30 km west of Warsaw

Janina is 14 years old when they have to leave the convent school in Warsaw. The residents of the monastery go to a monastery in Lomno, 30 km west of Warsaw, which has provided them with a former schoolhouse. The sisters live in two rooms on the ground floor, while the girls sleep on the floor on the first floor on straw mats. Your hosts give a slice of bread to each child.

Janina's father

When the monastery residents go into the forest again to pick mushrooms and berries, Janina feels the closeness of her father in the forest. She looks for him, but this time in vain. Sister Zofia sees this and later asks her who she is looking for. Janina describes that she had felt her father's closeness again and again in the past and that her feeling had not been mistaken: “I thought I would see my father. I've felt it so much the last few days. In the forest, I felt like he was very close. I've had this feeling a few times before and then it was right. ”Zofia says that she knows something like this herself. She once felt the presence of a deceased friend.

The last days of the war

At the end of September 1944, the Polish resistance was put down. German military engineers move in in mid-October. You are to design a new line of defense consisting of trenches and anti-tank barriers. They confiscate the two rooms on the first floor. On Monday, January 15, 1945, the German soldiers moved away and ruined the rooms on the ground floor in which they had previously lived. Then the Red Army appears among women and girls. Poland is liberated from the German occupation forces.

Jewish girls in the monastery

As a farewell, each girl leaves a note in the diary. Janina, who previously pretended to be Danka Makowska, reveals her real name and signs the diaries with Janina David . Many Jewish children and girls have found refuge in the monastery, with false names and forged baptismal papers. Theresa is also of Jewish origin. This is what the Mother Superior describes in a letter to Janina.

Return to Warsaw and news from Janina's father

Majdanek concentration camp, where Janina's father died

She returns to Warsaw. There she meets Cuba, the only surviving relative. Cuba was a prisoner of war for five years, then was liberated by the Americans. In the Warsaw City Library she is approached by a man who was with Marek in Majdanek concentration camp . He reports that Marek was too weak to escape from the concentration camp. However, he has asked all of his friends to tell Janina how much he loved her.

Awards

In 1982 the Czech leading actress Dana Vávrová received an award for A Slice of Heaven . She received the Golden Camera and the Golden Gong .

In 1983 Franz Peter Wirth, Dana Vávrová and Leo Lehmann were awarded the Gold Adolf Grimme Prize.

literature

  • Hartwig Schmidt, Janina David: A piece of heaven . The film book. Based on the memories of Janina David. Hanser, Munich / Vienna 1986, ISBN 978-3-446-14693-8 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Booklet on: A Piece of Heaven - Great Stories 26 [Episodes].
  2. ↑ Series lexicon Guest appearances by Anja Müssiggang on www.kabeleins.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.kabeleins.de  
  3. ↑ Series lexicon Guest appearances by Anja Müssiggang on www.kabeleins.de  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.kabeleins.de