The Forgotten Force - Polish Women in the Second World War was developed for Piłsudski Institute of London by Magdalena Paczocha, a researcher and videographer, who filmed conversations with our interviewees. The short documentary bears witness to their stories.
Forgotten Force is an oral history project by the Piłsudski Institute of London giving first-hand evidence of the past by audio and video recording stories o...
The second video, by Michaeal Daniel Sagatis, tells the story of Józefa Bujdo who was exiled to Kazakhstan in 1940 where she wrote a collection of letters. In 2015, the letters were found in South Wales by Józefa's Great Grandson, Michael. This documentary is a result of Michael's encounter with his family's past.
In 1940, Józefa Bujdo writes a collection of barley legible GULAG letters in an obscure borderlands dialect.
In 1972, Józefa's grandson composes a piece of music that is recorded once with no sheet music.
In 2016 Józefa's great grandson discovers both the letters and music and works with a philologist to decode the letters and a musicologist to transcribe the music, thereby restoring a chapter of lost family history.
"Józefa's Letters - Extraction from Oblivion", is a documentary exhibition performance that asks if the ‘echo’ of ancestral trauma, transmitted through generations, can surface in the creative expressions of descendants.
Michael Daniel Sagatis is an independent researcher and filmmaker born in the UK from Slavic and Celtic heritage. He has travelled and lived in former Soviet republics and accumulated various media including original archive material that has enabled him to premier his documentary exhibition performance "Józefa’s Letters - Extraction From Oblivion" that unites his family experience of political repression with his own creative expressions.
For all enquiries or links to versions in other subtitled languages (RU, UA, DE & PL) - please email Michael at sagatism@gmail.com
