The Report on Lodž

Pavel Štingl links the special atmosphere of the former Jewish ghetto in the Polish city of Łódź on two levels. Eyewitnesses who were placed there during the Second World War remember their everyday life in this area. They describe all the elements of life in the ghetto, which the director complements with archive photographs. Their testimonies are then absorbed into the second part of the film, in which Štingl shows the ghetto as it is today and finds that not a lot has changed. It is now used to harbour socially weaker groups from the Polish population. The filmmaker draws parallels between the daily rhythm of places that used to accommodate a quarter of a million Jews and which are now a refuge for impoverished Poles. What forms can people's housing and coexistence take and what determines these things? Under what conditions can people live and survive? Does our spiritual state influence the place where we live or does this place have a strong impact on us?