Italian poster for the film “Ulica Graniczna” (1949)
Extent and Medium
Overall: Height: 22.000 inches (55.88 cm) | Width: 29.500 inches (74.93 cm)
Creator(s)
- Fratelli Donato (Distributor)
- Film Polski (Production Company)
- Ken Sutak (Compiler)
Biographical History
The Cinema Judaica Collection consists of more than 1,200 objects relating to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical subjects, from 1923 to 2000, from the United States, Europe, Israel, Canada, Mexico, and Argentina. The collection was amassed by film memorabilia collector Ken Sutak, to document Holocaust-and Jewish-themed movies of the World War II era and the postwar years. The collection includes posters, lobby and photo cards, scene stills, pressbooks, trade ads, programs, magazines, books, VHS tapes, DVDS, and 78 rpm records. Sutak organized these materials into two groups, “Cinema Judaica: The War Years, 1939–1949” and “Cinema Judaica: The Epic Cycle, 1950–1972” and, in conjunction with the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum (now the Dr. Bernard Heller Museum in New York), organized exhibitions on these two themes in 2007 and 2008. Sutak subsequently authored companion books with the same titles.
Archival History
The poster was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2018 by Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur.
Acquisition
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Ken Sutak and Sherri Venokur
Scope and Content
Italian photobusta poster for the film, “Ulica Graniczna” (“Border Street”), originally released in Poland in 1949, and released in Italy in 1952. Photobusta posters were similar to American lobby cards, which were promotional materials placed in theater lobby windows to highlight specific movie scenes, rather than the broader themes often depicted on posters. “Ulica Graniczna” centers on several families in a tenement building in Warsaw, and features two Jewish children who are forced to relocate with their families into the Warsaw Ghetto. The film concludes with a dramatization of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the first on-screen representation of the event. During production in the late 1940s, increasing communist and antisemitic sentiment in Poland led the director to relocate to Czechoslovakia, where the film was completed. The intended 1948 premiere was delayed, after a Polish state-run committee deemed the film anti-Polish and lacking characters in line with a communist ideology. It was only released after revisions were made that downplayed Poland’s role in the Holocaust. Rather than focusing on the Jewish victims, Poland’s communist authorities wanted to emphasize the struggle that the Polish people shared with their Jewish neighbors. The final version of “Ulica Graniczna” shows a variety of Polish attitudes about the Holocaust and ends ambiguously, emphasizing to the audience that racism and persecution is not over. This object is one of more than 1,200 objects in the Cinema Judaica Collection of materials related to films about World War II and the Holocaust as well as Jewish, Israeli, and biblical themes.
Conditions Governing Access
No restrictions on access
Conditions Governing Reproduction
Restrictions on use. Copyright status is unknown.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
Poster printed on rectangular, cream-colored paper and mounted on a larger white, linen backing. The poster has a narrow margin on all four sides and features a collage of black-and-white photographic images, each with a narrow, white border. Across the top are three images: a canted portrait of a girl in a white blouse and two long braids; a pair of young boys in coats and hats, looking down at a small pistol that one of them is holding; and a canted portrait of a middle-aged man in a uniform. In the lower left corner is a horizontal image of a group of boys playing soccer in the yard outside a brick-and-wood building. Overlaid on the image is a red banner with curved ends, outlined in white. Within the banner is the Italian film title in white, with film credits printed in black. In the lower right corner is an image of a man pulling a wagon laden with household furniture and items along a dirt road in between brick and plaster buildings. Walking alongside the wagon, an older, bearded man is wearing a long, black coat and a woman is dressed in black with a scarf over her hair. Overlaid on the two images, in the center, is a cut-out portrait of a smiling man with blond hair that is combed over. A production company logo is printed in white in the top left corner, and a distributor logo is printed on the right edge. Copyright and printing information is in black in the bottom margin. The paper is discolored along the margins and the edges of the poster are worn with small losses. Depicted: Maria Broniewska as Jadzia Bialkówna, Jerzy Zlotnicki as David Libermann, Dionizy Ilczenko as Wladek Wojtan, Jerzy Pichelski as Kazimierz Wojtan, Tadeusz Fijewski as Bronek Cieplikowski, Wladyslaw Godik as Grandfather Libermann, Stefan Sródka as Natan Sziuliu, others unidentified
People
- Fijewski, Tadeusz.
- Broniewska, Maria.
- Ford, Aleksander.
- Pichelski, Jerzy, 1903-1963.
Subjects
- Poland.
- History in motion pictures.
- Warsaw (Poland)--History--Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943.
- Jews in motion pictures.
- Heroes in motion pictures.
- Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in motion pictures.
- Captivity in motion pictures.
- Polish people in motion pictures.
- Foreign language films.
- Antisemitism in motion pictures.
- Italy.
Genre
- Object
- Posters.
- Posters