Although the inhumane horrors of the WWII Holocaust have been chronicled many times on film — including such high-profile projects as Night and Fog, Shoah, Schindler’s List and Life Is Beautiful — little cinematic attention has been paid to the history of Jewish resistance and freedom fighters during the Nazis’ siege. Into that unfortunate void comes an illuminating new documentary, Four Winters, which engagingly lays out the courageous tale of Polish Jews using guerilla tactics to fight back as partisans.
As one surviving partisan explains early in the film, Jews are not often given credit for fighting back against the Nazi assaults. But there’s more to the story, and here is a compelling piece of it.
Drawing on an impressive cachet of archival footage and stills (some taken from within the partisan ranks in the Polish woods), director Julia Mintz skillfully weaves the narrative, with the lived-in veracity of several survivors’ detailed and sometimes emotion-wracked testimonies.