Uprising

Huey Newton said “I’d rather die on my feet then live on my knees”. The story of Uprising, a film about the rebellion of Jews in the Ghettos of Warsaw during World War II, is a presentation of this philosophy. Germany conquered Poland in about a month during World War II. They isolated the Jews into the Ghettos and then began a process of evacuating Jews to concentration camps where they were killed en mass. Rather than go willingly to their deaths. Heroes in the Warsaw Ghettos fought a hopeless battle against the Germans. The managed to kill many German soldiers and a few of the Jews even escaped to freedom.

I’m generally a sucker for a film with people fighting a hopeless battle and facing their deaths bravely, but it is a little different when the story being portrayed is not a work of fiction. Uprising is very respectful to the people who died in Warsaw. It shows them as human beings who were imperfect, but who were trying to do the right thing. It shows how the anti-Semitism of the allies prevented them from coming to the aid of the successful Jewish fighters. And it showed how the spirit of a people who had been oppressed for millennia could not be destroyed. It is a film which is definitely worth seeing, not just because of its historical content, but because of the quality of the film. It’s worth having in your DVD collection.