JIFF Review – ‘Among Neighbours’ – Surviving the Holocaust, only to face murder at home
Among Neighbours is an engaging documentary that tackles one of the most uncomfortable parts of Holocaust history, the attacks on Jewish survivors who returned to their homes in Polish towns after the war.
Most Holocaust films focus on the atrocities committed by the Nazis, but filmmaker Yoav Potash shifts the focus to the Polish people and the immediate postwar years.
This history is often overlooked: when some Polish civilians participated in violence against Jewish survivors who were simply attempting to return home. The Kielce pogrom in July 1946 is a brutal example, where 42 Jewish men, women, and children were murdered by locals, police, and soldiers.
Among Neighbours – flying over the ruins (still)
The film focuses on the town of Gniewoszow, where Potash spent years interviewing locals and tracking conflicting accounts of what happened in the immediate postwar months. However, countless similar events occurred after the war across Poland and many other parts of Europe.
The personal recollections of Yaakov Goldstein, one of the few remaining survivors from the area, anchor the film and guide viewers through the aftermath of the war and the experiences of Jewish survivors who returned home. Through his perspective, the documentary captures the sense of expectation and shock felt by those who, having survived immense hardship, found themselves facing new threats from neighbours.
The authenticity and detail of his testimony offer a direct connection to the events, making the broader themes of loss, resilience and community confrontation both immediate and compelling. His account points to a terrible pattern: returning Jews expecting safety only to face violence from people they had lived besides all their lives.
Pelagia Radecka, now in her late eighties, adds another layer. She grew up among Jewish families and has carried uneasy memories for decades as she wonders what happened to the Jewish boy she loved as a child. Her conversations with the filmmaker shed light on how locals processed or avoided the truth, and how stories changed as the years passed. The film shows a community grappling with its own history, including residents who speak frankly and others who prefer explanations that soften what happened.
Pelagia Radecka witnessed the events after the war (still)
Potash uses beautiful animation and archival material to bring the past into view. Scenes of postwar devastation, the search for survivors and fragments of vanished Jewish life help the viewer understand how disorienting those early months were. The film returns several times to the broken remains of Jewish graves, which were taken apart or reused over the decades, a stark sign of how thoroughly a community can disappear from the map.
Despite the weight of the material, the film’s strongest moments are its quiet ones. Conversations between Goldstein and Radecka are gentle but heavy with the knowledge that their lives were shaped by choices made in ordinary villages far from the front lines. Potash lets them speak for themselves, offering a picture of a time when the end of the war brought relief but also fresh danger for the few remaining Jews.
This is a nuanced and sober film. It shows how a single town can hold a story that is both local and universal, and how difficult it can be for communities to face the full record of their past.
Among Neighbours is now screening as part of the Jewish International Film Festival
