Only Honour Mattered / Blood on the Pavement. Grodno 1939

Podlasie Academy of Culture at the Białystok Cultural Centre and the Polish Film Institute have the pleasure of inviting you to film screenings on the occasion of the September 17th anniversary

Only Honour Mattered (Liczył się tylko honor)
Blood on the Pavement. Grodno 1939 (Krew na bruku. Grodno 1939)

and a Q&A with Eugieniusz Szpakowski, the director of TVP Białystok and Andrzej Pisalnik, the editor in chief of Znadniemna.pl

September 8th, 2019, 3 PM
Forum cinema, 5 Legionowa Street
tickets: 8 PLN, available at the Forum cinema’s box office (5 Legionowa Street), BCC/LZC’ box office (19 Warszawska Street) and on bilety.bok.bialystok.pl

partner: Association of Poles in Belarus (Andżelika Borys’)

Only Honour Mattered
Before World War II, Grodno served as a cultural, educational and military centre radiating to the entire Białystok province. On September 17, 1939, the Red Army units crossed the border of the Republic of Poland. The heroic attitude of its inhabitants contributed to the enormous Soviet repression applied to the city’s defenders in 1939 and subsequent years. The defence of Grodno lasted until September 22. After cessation of resistance, the Soviets entered the city. At that time, Polish soldiers were already paying a very high price for participating in its defence. The film presents the situation of the inhabitants of the lands occupied by the USSR, the scale and variety of forms of Soviet repression that were applied to the defenders of Grodno, both immediately after the capture of the city by units of the Red Army in September 1939 and later.

Blood on the Pavement. Grodno 1939
The date of September 17, 1939 will always be marked by the barbaric act of the Soviet invasion of Poland. The Soviet Union, implementing the criminal plan of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, occupied the eastern provinces of the Second Polish Republic. The fight for Grodno was one of the most heroic episodes of defending the Polishness of these lands, and the march of armed units of the Soviet army was stopped for 3 days by the civilian population – residents of Grodno and few forces of the Polish army. The film, documenting the history of the events of those days, is the first docudrama honouring the Poles from Grodno who undertook a heroic fight with the Soviet invader for the dignity of their homeland. In the times of the Polish People’s Republic, the topic of defence of Grodno was, like Katyń, a forbidden topic.