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A Polish director with Jewish heritage made a movie about the migrant crisis. The government compared it to Nazi propaganda.
(JTA) — Poland’s justice minister is embroiled in a feud with one of the country’s best-known filmmakers after comparing her award-winning new movie about Europe’s migrant crisis to Nazi propaganda.
The director, Agnieszka Holland, is the daughter of a Catholic mother and Jewish father, both of whom were part of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. Her paternal grandparents died in the ghetto.
Holland’s latest film, “The Green Border,” tells the story of Syrian and Afghan refugees whose fates collide with a guard at the Poland-Belarus border. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month, where it garnered rave reviews and won the special jury prize.
But reception has been much more hostile in Poland. Last week, several of the country’s right-wing ministers, including justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro, attacked the film by saying its depiction of border agents insulted the country. Ziobro’s attacks, in particular, stoked Holland’s ire when he likened it to Nazi propaganda on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
“In the Third Reich, the Germans produced propaganda films showing Poles as bandits and murderers,” Ziobro wrote. “Today they have Agnieszka Holland for that.” He later compared Holland to a communist.
The film’s social media pages have since been swarmed with antisemitic trolls, according to its sales agent. An irate Holland has threatened legal action against Ziobro, who is mentioned by name in the film. She has demanded that he apologize and make a donation to a Polish organization supporting Holocaust survivors.
An association for European filmmakers has come to Holland’s defense. “Agnieszka Holland was compared to the propagandists of the Third Reich by the Minister, even though the filmmaker is the daughter of a liaison officer of the Warsaw Uprising and the granddaughter of victims of the Holocaust,” the European Film Academy said in a statement, adding that Ziobro’s comments represented “personal hostility and threats.”
The episode demonstrates how intensely the current migration crisis has divided Poland, which has become the European frontline for the wave of refugees since Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko started encouraging mass migration across his country’s border in 2021. Lukashenko, a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is thought to be pursuing a strategy to flood Poland with migrants as a means of destabilizing the West.
As Poland’s government has shifted far to the right in recent years, Polish leaders have attacked local historians who suggest the country was complicit during the Holocaust, drawing condemnation from international bodies. The government has also become increasingly anti-migrant, although it has opened its borders to Ukrainian refugees fleeing the war with Russia. Just this week, it became engulfed in a scandal regarding work visas that officials were allegedly being sold to migrants in exchange for bribes.
Holland has a history of making provocative films about the Holocaust, even drawing the ire of leading European Jews. “Shoah” director Claude Lanzmann accused her of antisemitism for her Oscar-nominated 1990 film “Europa, Europa,” which tells the true story of a Jewish child who disguised himself as a Nazi in order to survive during the war. Some Jews were also angered by another film Holland wrote about the Jewish doctor Janusz Korczak, who tried and failed to save hundreds of Jewish children in the Warsaw Ghetto. Holland’s 2011 film “In Darkness,” also Oscar-nominated, is about Jews in hiding in Nazi-occupied Poland.
“The Green Border” is scheduled for release later this month in Poland.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.