Ostatni Etap / The Last Stop 1948 - A Polish prisoner of war film
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| Bodies of dead women in a Nazi concentration camp. Scene from the film Ostatni Etap, Poland, 1948. |
Ostatni Etap, or The Last Stage / The Last Stop, is a semi-fictional Polish movie made in 1947 by Wanda Jakubowska (1907-1998), a female director known as the "Grandmother of Polish film" and former prisoner of war in the Auschwitz concentration camp. The film presents a dramatised account of the plight of a group of women in the Nazi facility during World War II. It was released in 1948. The following is a brief account of the film, along with a listing of some of the movie posters issued in connection with its international release, though with special reference to the original Polish poster by Tadeusz Trepkowski. The film originally ran for 110 minutes, though a restored 104 minute version is available on YouTube here:
Ostatni Etap, Poland, Film Polska, 1948, duration: 102.41 minutes. Source: YouTube.
An un-restored, 105 minute version with English subtitles is available on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/ApvtA1iPn-U?si=k3eu7fTbj-uZsRUh.
Filmed in the actual Auschwitz concentration camp with Polish actors and individuals who had experienced the horror of the Nazi treatment first-hand, including members of the local Auschwitz community, it is a moving tale of the fate of women in the camp.
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| Wanda Jakubowska and Borys Monastryski filming Ostatni Etap, Auschwitz, 1 November 1947. |
Shot in black and white, this semi-documentary drama has been cited as one of the greatest Holocaust movies of all time. Whilst the director noted at the time that production company Film Polska would not allow her to portray the more grotesque elements of the camp experience - the dead bodies, brutal torture, rape, executions, disease, rats, rotten food and generally inhumane living conditions - she nevertheless included some truly horrific true-to-life experiences, portraying in part the shocking treatment by the Germans and their local collaborators, including fellow Poles (Wasserman 2018). The stark reality of the film resonates through to the present day.
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| Screening of Ostatni Etap, Warsaw, 1948. |
A 2007 review of the film by Prof. Jerzy Eisler of the Akademia Polskiego Filmu, in Polish with English subtitles, is available below. It is very critical of the film, suggesting that it does not accurately portray the historic reality of camp life and treatment by the Germans. Of course this must be tempered with the facts surrounding the filming, namely, that it involved individuals with first-hand experience and also that it was toned down by the production company, as already noted.
Another review from 2013 is also available:
Many accounts of life in the concentration camps were published in the immediate post-war years. A good example is Listy Spod Morwy - Sachsenhausen - Dachau (Letters from under a mulberry tree - Sachsenhausen and Dachau) by Gustav Morcinek.
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| Gustaw Morcinek, Listy Spod Morwy - Sachsenhausen - Dachau (Letters from under a mulberry tree), Warsaw, 1946. |
It was written in 1945 following the author's release from Dachau concentration camp, after being incarcerated in various camps 1939. Published in 1946, the cover has as its background the bluish purple striped material of the clothes worn by inmates, with a stitched-on piece of cloth bearing a pink P triangle and individual camp number.
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| Original concentration camp cloth and clothing, with distinctive blue stripes and individual camp identification number label, plus icon marking the wearer as Jewish. |
This book cover design is similar to that later adopted by Polish artist Tadeusz Trepkowski for his famous 1948 Ostatni Etap movie poster.
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| Tadeusz Trepkowski, Ostatni Etap, 27 x 39 inches (B2), Film Polski, Warsaw, 1948. |
When director Jakubowska returned to Auschwitz in 1947 to begin filming, she found it covered in "daisies of monstrous proportions and exuberant, indescribable vegetation on the soil that was fertilized by blood and sweat" (Haltof 2002). As a result, a red daisy, with broken stem, features in Trepowski's iconic poster. The portrayal of an individual prisoner of war, be they child or adult, female or male, as a beautiful red flower with a broken stem is both moving and a stark reminder of the many lives not lived due to the Nazi treatment of the Polish people.
The poster was reprinted alongside reissues of the film in Poland by Centrala Wynajmu Filmow (CWF) during 1952, 1958, 1979 and 1988. The original poster featured the pale grey-blue stripes which were close to the original colouring of the camp cloth. Later versions of the poster presented a closer bluish purple colouring for the stripes, or, as in the case of the 1988 poster, a distinct pale green.
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| Ostatni Etap, Rozpowszechnianie: Centrala Wynajmu Filmow (CWF), 23 x 33 inches, 1952. |
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| Ostatni Etap, 23 x 33 inches, 1988. |
Promotional material
The following is a listing of some of the graphical promotional material issued in association with the film's local and international release. This began with the Warsaw premiere in March 1948 (Wikipedia). It was followed by the release in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and Argentina. The film won the Crystal Globe at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 1948, was nominated for a Grand International Award at the Venice Film Festival in 1948, and for a British BAFTA Award for Best Film from Any Source in 1950. Ostatni Etap was released in the United States in 1949 as The Last Stop, with English subtitles.
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| Ostatni Etap, movie program, Warsaw, PWZG, 1948, 6 panels. |
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| Ostatni Etap, lobby cards, 9 1/2 x 12 inches, Film Polski Warszawa, 1948. |
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| Die Letzte Etappe [The Last Stop], German poster. |
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| L'Ultima Tappa [The Final Stop], Italian poster, 1951 first release. |
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| L'Ultima Tappa, Italian lobby card, 1951. |
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| L'Ultima Tappa, Italian lobby card, 1951. |
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| L'Ultima Tappa, Italian lobby card, 1951. |
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| Mujeres Heroicas, Argentina, 29 x 43 inches, 1951. |
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| Mujeres Heroicas, Czechoslavakia lobby card. |
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| Russian advertisement. |
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| La Derniere Etape, original French poster footage, 1948. |
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| La Derniere Etape, Paris, 1948. Premiere of the film in Paris. Image from Film magazine, Nr. 53/54, 23 December 1948. |
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| Film, Polish magazine, 1948. |
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| Danish program, 1951, first release. |
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| Danish poster, 1951. Art by Wenzel. |
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| La Derniere Etape, Belgian poster, 14 x 22 inches, 1960s. |
References
Bertram, John, Ostatni Etap: One of the first films about Auschwitz, Venus Febriculosa [blog], n.d.
Haltof, Marek, The Monstrosity of Auschwitz in Wanda Jakubowska's The Last Stage (1948), in Polish National Cinema, Oxford, New York, 2002.
Jakubowska, Wanda, Ostatni Etap, Biblioteka Scenariuszy Filmowych [Film Script Library], Warsaw, 1955, 148p.
Loewy, Hanno, The Mother of All Holocaust Films? Wanda Jakubowska's Auschwitz trilogy, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, 24(2), 2004, 179-204.
Mazierska, Ewa, Wanda Jakubowska: the Communist Fighter, in Ewa Mazierska and Elzbieta Ostrowska, Women in Polish Cinema, Berghahn Books, 2006.
Ostatni Etap, Benito Medela - Internacional Movie Poster [website], 2020.
The Last Stage (1948) [webpage], Film Affinity, n.d.
The Last Stage (1948) [webpage], Wikipedia, n.d.
Wasserman, Tina, Monstrous daisies: reenacting Auschwitz in Wanda Jakubowska's Ostatni Etap, Holocaust Studies, 24(1), 2018, 92-111.
Last updated: 7 October 2023
Michael Organ, Australia
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