Movie points to communist credit for fascist 
defeat

Jakob the Liar 
Columbia Pictures 
Directed by Peter Kassovitz 
1999

The film takes place in Nazi-occupied Poland 
inside a Jewish ghetto. Surrounded by barbed 
fences and armed guards, Nazis forbid any news 
from outside the ghetto.

While Nazis interrogate Jakob, he overhears a news 
broadcast that the Soviet army is a few hundred 
miles away and winning battles against the 
fascists. After he repeats the news, the ghetto 
becomes convinced that Jakob has a radio. The 
others want to hear the latest news from the 
front.

Jakob then considers whether to tell the truth 
about the radio. Amid the hopelessness and 
suffering, Jews had been committing suicide daily. 
Jakob would encourage hope by lying; he would face 
the punishment of death if Nazis thought he owned 
a radio.

A doctor in the ghetto discovers the truth. But he 
encourages Jakob to continue lying because the 
hope of communists invading Poland had helped 
increase determination. All suicides had stopped 
and the people organized a resistance movement.

Jakob the Liar offers a progressive analysis of 
the human potential to work together in the face 
of repression. Previously fighting for individual 
survival, the people's hope of the communist 
victory drove them to help others in the ghetto 
instead of acting selfishly.

The movie does not openly distinguish between 
communist forces led by Stalin and the other 
allied forces fighting the fascists. But it 
alludes to the fact that it was only the 
communists fighting fascism on the Polish front. 
Through the early years, the imperialists hoped 
that the fascists and the communists would destroy 
each other and leave the land and resources for 
the imperialists to take. Imperialists only 
entered WWII at the very end, when the defeat of 
fascism was assured. At that point, the 
imperialists hoped to split the spoils of war and 
contain the growing strength of the communists.

Jakob the Liar contrasts the despair of Nazi 
deathcamps with the hope offered by the Communist 
military. This is an important addition to modern 
Amerikan culture where the people have all but 
forgotten that it was the communists, led by 
Stalin, who defeated Hitler and saved the millions 
of lives.