As a young man, he dreamt of becoming an academic philosopher. In 1918, he was promoted personally by Commander Józef Piłsudski on the battlefield. In 1939, the Tenth Cavalry Brigade he led provided an effective shield for the Krakow Army against the Germans. In various locations liberated under his command in France and Belgium, and in particular in the Dutch town of Breda, the memory of General Maczek is alive until today. Stanisław Maczek – the only Polish general who did not lose a single battle during the Second World War – was a unique person yet is still little known in Poland. Rafał Geremek’s documentary attempts at systematising the key events and interesting items from the life of the commander of the First Armoured Division. Following in Maczek’s footsteps in, among other, today’s Ukraine, France, Scotland and the Netherlands, the director has taken up the major challenge of filming 102 years of a hero of five nations. Recollections of the general’s family and survivors who used to serve under his command have been skilfully compiled with photographs and filmed accounts from European archives. The film also shows the dramatic situation faced by soldiers of the Polish Armed Forces in the West who were fighting for Poland’s freedom over six years yet often after the struggle unable to return to their fatherland. That was the fate of General Maczek himself, who after the war settled in Edinburgh and his jobs included that of a bartender. Supplemented with feature footage starring the actor Redbad Klynstra-Komarnicki as Gen. Maczek, the entire picture not only offers a broad view of the military accomplishments of the First Armoured Division but also helps the viewer see its commander as a righteous, very reasonable as well as highly optimistic and modest man.

60 MINUTES, POLAND 2019, PRODUCED BY THE POLISH HISTORY MUSEUM, DIRECTED BY RAFAŁ GEREMEK

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