In September 1943, 17-year-old Stanisław Zalewski was arrested in Warsaw as a member of a Polish resistance group and taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp for labour service. From there, he was sent to Mauthausen and finally to the Gusen camp, where the prisoners were forced to work for the German armaments industry under inhumane conditions. For a long time, Stanisław Zalewski, like many other victims of Nazi terror, remained silent about his painful experiences. It was only after forty years that he began to talk about it, at events, memorial services, and in schools, and he continues to do so to this day, even at the age of 99. Now, for the first time, he tells his stirring life story in a film as a deeply impressive ‘ambassador of remembrance’.

Director Biography - Magdalena Zelasko

Magdalena Żelasko, born in the Polish city Krakow, has lived in Vienna for around 30 years. The certified marketing and advertising expert studied Slavic studies as well as journalism and communication science at the University of Vienna, where she completed her doctorate in 2005. She has worked in management for several international companies and as a journalist for various Austrian and Polish media. Before founding the LET’S CEE association and managing the successful festival of the same name from 2012 to 2018, she worked as a lecturer in the Department of Culture and Communication at the University of Vienna. Since 2022, she has been implementing the innovative EU-funded film education project ‘EU Youth Cinema: Green Deal’, which is now offered in twelve countries.