Jaruzelski – A General’s Purgatory

”I was not able to sleep during several days and nights”, says the former communist leader of Poland Wojciech Jaruzelski when he tells about his decision to proclaim martial law in Poland 1981.
Martti Puukko’s documentary JARUZELSKI – A GENERAL’S PURGATORY returns to the dramatic phases of the late Polish history.
General Wojciech Jaruzelski is remembered of his big black spectacles and putting Poland under the martial law. The documentary is telling the story of the son of a noble family ending to the lines of the troops of communists, later as communist leader and president. He is one of the key figures in the dramatic political change in Eastern Europe. Today Jaruzelski is supporting the Nato-membership of his country.
Film is dealing with the little known period of history, expelling the Jews from Poland in 1968, when Jaruzelski was the vice minister of defence. In 1970’s violent riot, in the Polish coastal town Gdansk, army under command of general Jaruzelski opened fire on protesting workers killing 44 people. For this Jaruzelski has been tried now over ten years in Warsaw court listening 3000 witnesses. 82 years old general is likely not to see the process ever ending.
In the film Jaruzelski is pondering his decisions in front of history and his own conscience.