4 real historical locations · Poland
Robin Williams in a rare dramatic role as a Jewish man in the Lodz Ghetto who claims to own a secret radio and uses fictional broadcasts of Allied victories to keep hope alive among his fellow prisoners. Based on Jurek Becker's novel, itself rooted in his childhood in the ghetto.
CinemaMapped has mapped 4 real historical locations where the story takes place, spanning Poland.
Jakob, a Jewish man in the ghetto, claims to have heard a Soviet radio broadcast — and the rumour of imminent liberation spreads desperate hope through a pop...
The Łódź Ghetto was the second-largest in occupied Poland, holding over 200,000 people at its peak. Established in 1940, it was one of the last ghettos liquidated — in August 1944, the remaining 70,000 inhabitants wer...
View location →Jakob Heym claims to own a radio and invents hopeful news bulletins about Soviet advances. The lie spreads joy through the ghetto — but also the desperate mo...
The Łódź Ghetto held 200,000 Jews at its peak. It was the longest-surviving major ghetto, liquidated in August 1944 when its residents were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Only 877 were found alive at liberation.
View location →Jakob briefly hears a German radio broadcast at the police station — the accidental seed of his lifesaving lie. The mundane detail of overhearing news sets i...
The film is based on Jurek Becker's 1969 novel, itself drawing on the author's own experience as a child in the Łódź and Ravenbrück camp systems. Becker survived the war but never recovered his childhood memories.
View location →The destination the ghetto inhabitants dread: deportation east to Treblinka. Jakob's radio lies are all that stand between hope and the despair of knowing wh...
Treblinka II extermination camp operated from July 1942 to October 1943. Approximately 900,000 Jews were murdered there, making it the second deadliest single site of the Holocaust after Auschwitz-Birkenau.
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