"Krzyz Walecznych" (Cross of Valor) was the first full feature film of Kazimierz Kutz, who was associated with the region of Silesia. Although artistically speaking later films of Kazimierz Kutz surpassed this debut work, "Krzyz Walecznych" is to me unparalleled in its intellectual contents and truly timeless message. Outwardly it has three stories dealing with the repercussions of WW2. So we have a soldier who returns to his ruined village, a stray dog turning out to be the former guard at some concentration camp, and the small community refusing the young widow the right to private life-they only want to see in her the wife of a fallen hero. I am not a war generation guy and instinctively interpreted those stories in the spirit of present times. So the first story was for me a general parable that we all need a witness to our life. For religious people it might be their god, but we all hate the idea that nobody cares about our experiences and memories. The story with the German shepherd meant to me the skills and heritage of German people. It would be stupid to discard those skills, and we need to use the experience of others to build the future that is better than the horrors of war. And finally the story with the widow (which is the most obvious one) is a Polish specialty for creating national myths. There is even an institution in Poland called Instytut Pamieci Narodowej (Institute of National Memory)-IPN. During the rule of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the IPN was mostly used in a criminal way-to spread lies about the first Solidarity leader, Lech Walesa; to falsify the number of Jews saved by Poles during WWII; and so on. All in the name of "patriotism," as this word is understood by fervent nationalists with the mentality of football hooligans. I watched "Krzyz Walecznych" a couple of years ago, during the rule of Jaroslaw Kaczynski and amid the violent attacks of the state-controlled media on Western values and some Western European countries, especially Germany. Having worked for more than 30 years in IT with educated and open-minded people on projects initiated in the USA, Germany, UK, and Poland, I stopped paying attention to people's nationalities, races, and religions decades ago. So you can imagine my feelings of disgust and insult when hearing on the state television some wild and infantile conspiracy theories or the stories like that Donald Tusk (who was at that time the President of the European Council) was a Nazi and a German spy. But fortunately the rule of Jaroslaw Kaczynski ended in disgrace. My final conclusion is that made in 1959 "Krzyz Walecznych" was, to some extent, a prophetic film and was the work of some thoughtful people who deserve our remembrance and respect. Some additional assets of the film is its realism in conveying the atmosphere of the country just liberated from German occupation and the participation of many popular actors of the 1950s (Zbigniew Cybulski, Bronislaw Pawlik, Jerzy Turek).
