Jakob the Liar

This movie and its 1974 predecessor were both based on the novel "Jakob der Lügner", written in 1969 by the East German author Jurek Becker. As Jews, Becker and his parents were placed in a Polish Ghetto in 1939. In order to save him from deportation, his parents gave the Germans a false birth date; Becker forgot his real birth date and was never able to discover it later in life. Although he was eventually sent to the concentration camps Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen, both he and his father survived the war; his mother died of malnutrition after being freed from the camp. His novel "Jakob der Lügner" won the Heinrich-Mann Prize for literature in 1971; Becker died in 1997 of cancer.

The train locomotive in the lower left-hand corner of the DVD cover artwork is correct for southern California when the movie was released in 1999, but it's totally wrong for the movie's setting in 1944 Poland. Its cab profile was used on various diesel-electric models built by General Motors for the North American market from the early 1960s onwards, it has 1990s-style dual low-mounted safety lights, and its red-and-gray paint scheme bears an uncanny resemblance to that used by the Southern Pacific Railroad in the western United States in the late 20th century.

Special thanks to the city and peoples of Piotrków, Poland, the city and peoples of Lódz, Poland and the city and peoples of Budapest, Hungary.

Featured in Siskel & Ebert & the Movies: American Beauty/Blue Streak/For Love of the Game (1999)