Ambulance

(1961)

★ 6.5 IMDb · 4 votes

Genres: Drama

Year: 1961

Runtime: 11 мин

Country: Poland

Director: Janusz Morgenstern

Cast: Zbigniew Józefowicz, Leopold Rene Nowak, Marek Sniatkiewicz, Bogusław Sochnacki

Plot

In this haunting short fiction film, a group of Jewish children and their teacher are herded into an ambulance by Nazis; the vehicle, ordinarily representing comfort and safety, becomes the group’s death chamber. Morgenstern’s presentation of the incident serves as a metaphor for the horror of the Holocaust, and provides a powerful trigger for discussion of the disturbing issues raised by the film. The figure of the children's’ teacher specifically parallels Janusz Korcak (1879-1942), a famous Jewish educator who ran an orphanage in the Warsaw ghetto and died with his young charges at Treblinka.