The magical, black-and-white animation of 'Among Neighbors,' filmmaker Yoav Potash's documentary about a Polish town, screened in Israel for Holocaust Remembrance Day, starting April 23, 2025 (Courtesy)
Yoav Potash's award-winning film "Among Neighbors," about Holocaust survivors who returned to murderous neighbors in their Polish hometowns, is qualified to be considered for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, but certain parts of Polish society are railing against the film.
When the Polish public broadcast network TVP aired the movie and made it available for streaming last month, right-wing politicians reacted angrily, with Agnieszka Jedrzak, the undersecretary to the Polish president, attacking the film on X.
She called the film "anti-Polish historical manipulation," and said that "a television station that has 'Polish' in its name should not have it on its airwaves."
Jedrzak's tweets against the film were viewed 334,000 times as of December 7.
Others vowed to strip TVP of its license.
Speaking from his home in California's Bay Area, Potash assessed that the extreme nationalist faction in Poland was trying to use the film to score political points and get back at the more center-left party currently in power in Poland.
Poland's government has been center-left for the last two years under Prime Minister Donald Tusk, but the ultra-conservative Law and Justice party is still popular, winning more seats than any other in the 2023 parliamentary election.
Conservative Karol Nawrocki, who made Holocaust revisionism part of his campaign, was inaugurated in August as Poland's new president. His party has promoted historical narratives about Polish victimhood and resistance to the Nazis, while delegitimizing research on Polish antisemitism or Poles who killed Jews.
Related: Documentary digs up story of Polish village that butchered its Jews after Holocaust ended
In November, far-right Polish lawmaker Grzegorz Braun declared that "Poland is for Poles, not Jews," a statement delivered outside the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Potash noted that Poland, like Israel and the US, is a very divided country.
"They're trying to stir up Polish patriotic outrage through the film and get the commoners more upset at the center-left party," said Potash. "They're turning the public TV into a mouthpiece now that it's not in their control, and anything they can do to punish TVP and drag them through the muck."
The documentary, ten years in the making, tells several interlaced stories, all connected to Gniewoszów, a small town in Poland where Jews were murdered by their neighbors months after the war had ended.
Potash, an award-winning filmmaker, brings viewers to the rural village through interviews and footage, and uses dreamy, hand-drawn animation that tells the prewar and postwar history of Gniewoszów.
The film is still freely available for streaming in Poland through TVP's online platform.
Potash said he hopes the attacks on the film attract attention and interest, leading more people to see it.
"Our experience to date has been that when people see it, they're moved by it," said Potash. "The film gets recognition and honors and critical acclaim and has won ten awards already, so there's no telling exactly where it will go, but I think sometimes when a government tries to shut down a story, it only serves to amplify it."
In addition to Polish broadcaster TVP, supporters of the film include the Warsaw Jewish Film Festival, various Jewish organizations in Poland, and the film's partner organizations in the United States, including The Claims Conference, Jewish Story Partners, the Jewish Film Institute, the JFCS Holocaust Center, and the USC Shoah Foundation, founded by Steven Spielberg.
Potash is organizing more screenings in the US and in Poland, including in the San Francisco Bay Area at the 600-seat Grand Lake Theater on December 15, during the second night of Hanukkah.
"We could fling mud back or we can gather people together and have them see the film for themselves," he said.
Potash plans on bringing "Among Neighbors" to theaters across the US and the world for International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, 2026. Dates and locations will be available on the "Among Neighbors" website in several weeks.