BIRTHPLACE Movie Review

Henryk Greenberg, a Polish-born American who lost much of his family in the Holocaust, is the subject of Pavel Lozinski's mind-blowing, 47-minute, 1992 documentary chronicling Greenberg's return to the village of his childhood. Certain of the location where his father and younger brother were murdered, Greenberg returns to find most of his former neighbors predictably claiming foggy memories at first; but soon their recollections come more easily. Even Greenberg, however, isn't fully prepared for the evidence that is uncovered before the camera in Birthplace—evidence that is presented to the audience so straightforwardly and simply that the sudden invention of a time machine couldn't make the past come more vividly, horribly alive. Though it runs just three-quarters of an hour, Birthplace is as full, as complete, and as powerful a work of art as any feature film on this subject that I've ever seen. To call it unforgettable is an understatement. For any citizen of this century, to miss it is unforgivable.

NEXT STOP … Night and Fog, Shoah, Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie

1992 47m/C D: Pavel Lozinski. NYR