Never Forget to... Lie?

Marzynski, Marian, dir. Never Forget to Lie.  PBS Frontline, 2013. Film.

     In the documentary film Never Forget to Lie, filmmaker Marian Marzynski, a child survivor of the Holocaust, ventures into previously unexplored territory: his childhood memories of the Holocaust.  Composed of emotional interview clips and footage of places in Warsaw, Krakow, Treblinka, and other areas in or around Poland, the film revisits Marzynski’s past. Marzynski uses the stories of other child survivors as fragments around which he tells his own story, a story Marzynski kept inside of him for the majority of his life.  Yet as difficult as it was for Marzynski to finally share this private information with the public, he felt obligated to, so that as sections of the Warsaw ghetto are even now being turned into condominiums, the world would never forget what transpired during the Holocaust.  By travelling to the places of his and the other survivors’ youth while allowing them to tell their stories, Marzynski captures the pain and suffering unleashed by the Holocaust in a startling and indelible way, while lending an interesting perspective to the true meaning of family, love, and sacrifice.

     Marzynski’s jarring perspective is captured in the documentary’s title: Never Forget to Lie.  Although a counterintuitive phrase that seems to defy logos, the title makes perfect sense relative to the ways in which the Holocaust turned social and behavioral norms upside-down.  It was this fanatical time that Marzynski recaptured in memories and footage, and one of the most prominent ways he did so was through juxtaposition.  By revisiting the past from the present and subsequently juxtaposing footage from “then” and from “now,” Marzynski was able to show that while time can erase something’s physical remnants, it is incapable of fully removing emotional scars.  This juxtaposition was complimented by a mixture of black and white photographs and footage with sharp, color images, as well as by deliberate intangible gestures: hugging, handholding, and other tender, emotional gestures in such ravaged, violent places as the Warsaw ghetto and Treblinka concentration camp.  In the paradoxical ambiance thus created, Marzynski was able to convey one of the film’s most important themes: that despite the hardships and unspeakable horrors of a past, there is always hope for a brighter future; for this reason, the past must always be remembered.

     And remembered it will be, for Never Forget to Lie’s estimable creation of pathos through emotional testimony, archival footage, and the presence of heirloom photographs and artifacts ensured that Marzynski’s enduring messages remained in the audience’s minds.  The majority of the film took place in Warsaw, Poland, largely under the context of a reunion/conference of child Holocaust survivors.  This organized gathering established credibility (ethos) for Marzynski, and subsequently made the survivor testimony seem unequivocally authentic and cinematically unembellished (what the survivors themselves perhaps added or changed to their memories is impossible to know for sure; however, the filmed renditions themselves did not seem to have been coached by Marzynski).  The survivor testimony was extremely poignant; Marzynski captured on camera what for many of the survivors was the first time they had either voiced their memories aloud or revisited the places of their memories.  Outbursts of raw emotion—tears, shaking, minor hysteria—marked the telling of the interviews and solidified their lasting impact on the audience.

     The interviews were further enhanced by Marzynski‘s deliberate location of them, generally in front of decrepit and plain buildings.  This placement forced the survivors’ words to become the focus of the interviews, and did not permit them to be overshadowed or distracted from by the surroundings.  Also, for almost the entire documentary the camera was placed at eye level with those speaking.  By purposefully placing them on the same level as the audience, Marzynski was able to humanize them.  Occasional side-view shots of those being interviewed added a sense of humility to the documentary, because it made it appear as if Marzynski was granting the interviewers some privacy.  This resonated especially with the audience, putting again into context how difficult it was for the survivors to speak of their pasts.

     Furthermore, Marzynski worked hard at establishing certain associations between objects, sensations, and the audience throughout the film.  The inclusion of artifacts such as Marzynski’s father’s watch and a landlady’s book of all the tenants to whom she rented apartments helped the sense of loss and connections through time to become more tangible for the audience.  Finally, the mixture of Polish and English language and normal background noise with only hints of music gave the film in its entirety an unedited, authentic, and purposeful air.

     Above all, one of the most outstanding elements of the film was its somewhat abrupt ending.  This masterfully mirrored how the Holocaust changed Marzynski’s and so many others’ lives, and how despite the questions people will constantly be asking about what happened during the Holocaust, one can never know for sure what the world could have been without the loss of so many lives.  The ability of Marzynski to so powerfully recreate these sensations within the audience is what truly set apart this film from many other Holocaust themed works.