Hospital of the Transfiguration

Taking as its starting point Stanisław Lem’s novel of the same title, Edward Żebrowski explores one of the earliest, yet the least known, stages of the Nazi genocide. Fresh out of university, a young doctor finds himself working in a hospital in the sleepy Polish countryside. While it might be quiet, it is hardly peaceful – it’s autumn 1939 and war is gradually creeping into the formerly closed-off hospital asylum. The Nazis do eventually appear, and intend to exterminate the mentally ill as part of action T4, but there is already no shortage of doctors who objectify their patients and stripping them of their dignity. Here, Nazi policy turns out to be nothing more than a continuation of practices already prevalent in the medical field. Now that we know the fate endured by Lem – a Jew from Lviv who narrowly escaped the Holocaust and later trained as a doctor – the horrific tone of the film takes on an entirely new meaning.

Piotr Sadzik

Edward Żebrowski (1935–2014) was a Polish director and screenwriter. He is known for the screenplays that he co-wrote with Krzysztof Zanussi (including The Structure of Crystal and Behind the Wall). He directed three feature films, Salvation (1972), Hospital of the Transfiguration (1978) and In Broad Daylight (1981), as well as several for television. He stopped working for health reasons.