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Ambulance (1961)

Ambulance (1961)

Drama
Release Date: 1961, January 1
Directors: Janusz Morgenstern
Countries: Poland
Production: Se-Ma-For
Cast: Bogusław Sochnacki, Zbigniew Józefowicz, Leopold Rene Nowak, Marek Sniatkiewicz

Overview:

In this haunting short fiction film, a group of Jewish children and their teacher are herded into an ambulance by Nazis; the vehicle, ordinarily representing comfort and safety, becomes the group’s death chamber. Morgenstern’s presentation of the incident serves as a metaphor for the horror of the Holocaust, and provides a powerful trigger for discussion of the disturbing issues raised by the film. The figure of the children's’ teacher specifically parallels Janusz Korcak (1879-1942), a famous Jewish educator who ran an orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto and died with his young charges at Treblinka.