5/5 star***** review of Kazik and the Kommander’s Car film in the West End Extra Feb 2012
Kazimierz “Kazik” Piechowski was a Polish boy scout. The Nazis arrested him for this reason in 1939 and Kazik was transported to Auschwitz in 1940.
His harrowing story of witnessing mass murder can only be told because of his determination to escape: he and two other former scouts, all political prisoners, broke into a store room, stole SS uniforms, and then hot-wired the camp commander’s super-fast sports car and simply drove out of the gates.
The story is told through an interview with Mr Piechowski, haunting animation from Galen Wainwright and the song ‘Kommander’s Car,’ by British singer and songwriter Katy Carr. (more…)
Related Screening
3/5*** star review of Kazik and the Kommander’s Car DVD in TIME OUT, London Feb 2012
Affected and inspired by the story of a Polish prisoner (Kazik Piechowski) who, along with three others, managed to escape from Auschwitz posing as SS officers, singer/songwriter Katy Carr wrote a folk song to mark the occasion and then went to Poland to present it to Kazik and his wife, and to hear the former prisoner’s own account of the escape. Simply structured and hardly edited, Lovell’s short film may be small in stature but it’s as important and worthy an account of the Holocaust as any. (more…)
Kazik and the Kommander’s Car DVD review on Penny Black music Feb 2012
‘Kazik and the Kommander’s Car’, which has been released to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Kazik’s escape, is documentary making at its most important. It is a testament to the horrors of the Holocaust, and a part of history that we should never forget. FOR FULL REVIEW PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK ABOVE (more…)