We Need Movies About Heroes, not "Basterds"
If that's not enough for a movie there's still more. Trepper and his family returned to Poland in 1957 and he became the leader of the Cultural Association of Polish Jews. Ten years later Gomulka, the first secretary of the Polish Communisty Party made a speech at a union meetings saying, "The Jewish community is the Fifth Column." A wave the anti-Semitic outbursts swept the country. Jews starting leaving. In June 1971 Trepper was put under virtual house arrest. An international campaign was started on his behalf. Yet the conditions of his confinement did not improve. Two years later after a serious illness he wrote a letter to the Polish CP Central Committee saying he inteneded to go on a hunger strike. Either he would be allowed to leave Poland or he would starve himself to death! The CP caved. In November 1973 he was allowed to leave for England.
He died in Jerusalem in 1982. In the epilogue to his autobiography "The Great Game", he wrote that he did not regret his revolutionary commitment, "that socialism will triumph, and that it will not have the color of the Russian tanks that crushed Prague."
So there you have it, a proud tough Jew, a Red who made the Nazis pee in their pants.
I think there's a movie in there somewhere.
