Screening of the 2018 documentary film
“Der Gerechte über den Völkern”
directed by Piotr Szalsza
Organizers: Austrian Cultural Forum, Miszpucha Foundation, Wiener-Krakauer Kultur-Gesellschaft

The film of Piotr Szalasza is a Polish-Austrian co-production, tells the remarkable life story of Julius Madritsch, a Viennese entrepreneur who ran three textile factories between 1940 and 1944: Two of them were located in the Podgórze district of Kraków, on the grounds of the ghetto (both buildings have survived to this day), and one in Tarnów. Nearly a thousand Jews were employed there. In collaboration with two other Austrians, Raimund Titsch and Oswald Bouska, he managed to save the lives of several hundred people. In 1964, all three were awarded the title “Righteous Among the Nations” by the Yad Vashem Institute. Madritsch is surprisingly little-known outside of Krakow; this will therefore be an excellent opportunity to commemorate this Austrian hero. At the end of the event, there will be a moderated discussion with audience participation.

Piotr Szalsza – Director, musician, screenwriter, translator, author, journalist, publicist, editor, and producer of television shows, as well as organizer of musical, theatrical, and academic projects. A graduate of the Music Academy in Katowice, where he studied viola.

For many years he co-headed the Arts Department Editorial Office of TVP Katowice and the Music and Entertainment Department of TVP Gdańsk. As a television director, he produced several hundred productions in collaboration with ORF, ZDF, RTR, ARTE, NHK, 3SAT, and TVP, including composer portraits (Penderecki, Lutosławski, Kilar, Dvořák, Grieg, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Wagner), Chopin Impressions with Adam Harasiewicz, the ballet film Mandragora by Karol Szymanowski, documentaries (Julius Madritsch in Kraków – Righteous Among the Nations, In the Footsteps of Great Galician Women, Chopin – Czechia and Vienna, The Heart of Chopin, and An Ordinary Day in the Warsaw Ghetto), the musical film comedy Strauss à la Carte, and the television production of Bernhard's Heldenplatz (featuring, among others, Krystyna Janda, Jan Englert, Anna Seniuk, and Zbigniew Zapasiewicz).

He collaborated with numerous opera and theater companies, including the Baltic Opera, the Wiener Kammeroper, the National Opera in Warsaw, the Silesian Theatre in Katowice, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the Yiddishspiel of Israel (Tel Aviv), Theater Experiment Wien, the People's Theatre in Kraków, and the Viennese festival Spectaculum and Wrocław's Leopoldinum Festival.

He is the author of Karol Szymanowski in Prague (1982) and Bronisław Huberman – The Passions and Obsessions of a Forgotten Genius (2001). He also wrote several dozen entries for the Great Austrian Music Encyclopedia and translated works by Austrian authors into Polish.

For Teatr Polonia, he translated, arranged, and adapted Peter Turrini's monodrama Seven Seconds of Eternity, starring Joanna Liszowska as Hedy Lamarr.

He has received numerous awards for his artistic achievements, including the TVP President's Award in Music (1968), the distinctions Meritorious Cultural Activist and Meritorious for Polish Culture (1990), the Knight's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland (1993), the Chopin Passport from the Chopin Anniversary Celebrations Committee (2010), the Viennese Golden Owl (2010), and the Austrian Golden Cross of Honor for Science and Art, First Class (2014).

From 1983 to 2023 he lived in exile in Vienna. In 2023 he returned to Poland, settling in Gdynia.

Mateusz Urban – translator, theatre scholar, and certified guide of the permanent exhibition at the Jewish Historical Institute. Affiliated with the Fundacja Miszpucha, which organizes the above-mentioned event.

Monika Bednarek – Director of the Muzeum KL Płaszów.

Katarzyna Kocik – Head of the “Apteka pod Orłem” branch of the Muzeum Krakowa.

21.05.2026, 6 PM
Austrian Cultural Forum
ul. Próżna 7/9, Warsaw 
Event in Polish. 
Free entry!