Kiselev list

The film was based on the feat of political instructor Nikolai Kiselyov, a Soviet officer who managed to escape from German captivity and became a member of the partisan detachment "Revenge", operating in the territory of occupied Belarus. The main place in the "Kiselev List" is given to the stories of living eyewitnesses of those events.

In 1941, the village of Dolginovo in Belarus turned out to be in the territory occupied by the Germans. 5000 Jews lived in the village.

The mass extermination of Jews began in 1942 . By the summer, 278 people remained alive ^[2] , mostly old people, women and children — those who managed to go into the woods or managed to sit out in the cellar. Belarusian peasants could not shelter them under pain of death.

The partisan detachment "Revenge", to which the surviving Jews had nailed, had no opportunity to accept and support all these people. The partisans requested Moscow and received orders to withdraw the Jews across the front line.

Nikolay Kiselev took up the assignment. 270 people went with him, most of whom are old people, women and children. The group was accompanied by 8 partisans ^[3] .

The transition lasted more than a month, twice the detachment came across a German ambush, many were injured. After one of the clashes, 50 people were missing; what happened to them is unknown. Two wounded - an elderly woman and a boy had to be left in the forest, but they survived.

The smallest in the group was the girl Berta, who often cried. As we get closer to the front line, this became more and more dangerous. During one of these dangerous moments, Bert's parents in desperation decided to drown the girl in order to save the whole group. Then Nikolay Kiselev took the child in his arms, reassured her and carried him to the end of the trip in his arms. Berta survived ^[4] .

After more than 1,500 km crossing the occupied territory, Kiselev led 218 people out of the front line, after which he was arrested by the military counterintelligence as a deserter. However, the people saved by him, in turn, interceded for him, and Kiselev was released ^[5] .

After the war, Kiselev worked at the Ministry of Foreign Trade and did not tell anyone about this story. He died in 1974, never again meeting any of the people he saved ^[6] .

In Israel, Kiselyov was awarded the title of Righteous World . The people he saved, their children and grandchildren, which number more than 2,200 people, gather annually in Tel Aviv on June 5, the day of the last execution of the Dolginovsky ghetto . They compare Kiselyov with Moses , who brought the Jewish people out of slavery ^[2] .

The producer of the picture, Jacob Kaller, said about his main character ^[7] :

“Kiselyov is actually the Russian Schindler , only he did not live in Germany, but in the Soviet Union. But, unfortunately, unlike Schindler, nobody knows anything about him. ”

It is noteworthy that the daughter of Nikolai Kiselyov Tatyana studied with Yakov Kaller at the institute in the same group, they knew each other well. But then she did not tell Caller about the history of her father ^[8] .

The film was produced by the Director General of the Russian television company AB-TV, a member of the Presidium of the Eurasian Academy of Television and Radio Yakov Kaller, whom Inna Gerasimova, director of the Museum of the History and Culture of Belarusian Jews, introduced her research materials. The film was originally planned not only about Kiselev, but also about the place Dolginovo and the death of Jews. Subsequently, the script was changed and it turned out a film about the exploit of Kiselev. The film was created on the basis of documents and materials of the museum, as well as stories of surviving participants in the events from the "Kiselev list" ^[3] .

60 percent of the cost of making the film was provided by the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography of Russia , 40 percent was provided by the producer ^[8] . The film was voiced by Igor Kvasha and Alexander Nosik .

The creative team managed to find 14 such participants. Then in 1942 they were children from 3 to 14 years old, all adult members of the list had already died by the start of filming. At the time of making the film, the survivors lived in Israel , the United States, and only one in Russia - Joseph Kaplan ^[9] .

The film consists of 7 episodes, most of which are stories of survivors. List of film participants ^[4] :

• Chaim Grosbein
• Victor Dimenstein
• Miriam Goltz
• Eliyahu Radashkovich
• Arye Rubin
• Sima Schlechtman
• Shimon Hevlin
• Sima Sosenski
• Joseph Kaplan
• Anna Nehama Neumann
• Ezhezkel Gitlich
• Bertha Kremer

Filmmaker Tatyana Lioznova after watching the film told Yakov Kaller: “I haven’t cried for six years at the TV set - you made me cry.” Victor Matizen, President of the Guild of Film Critics and Film Critics of Russia, commented on the film as follows: “For each of the 218 Jews of the Kiselev List, one can say the same thing that the Florentines said about Dante :“ He was in hell and left there ” ^[10] .

Film director Valery Balayan , who began work on the film in 2005, but then refused to continue it, believes that the film does not sufficiently reveal the anti-Semitism of the partisans and the local Polish population. He writes that the film does not consider the context of the situation in Belarus at that time, because of which Kiselev’s feat remained, in essence, still not disclosed, and evaluates the picture as “constructed half-truth” and “sugary myth-making” ^[11] .

The teacher of history from Saratov, Yulia Davydova, based on her experience with high school students, believes that films such as “Kiselev’s List” are a resource that helps the teacher convey information about the events of World War II to students ^[12] .

The film received 17 awards at various film festivals ^[13] . Including:

• Prizewinner of the Fourth International Television and Radio Festival "Winning Together", first place in the nomination "Partisan Trails" ^[14] .
• Grand Prix of the XII International Festival of Television Programs and Films “Golden Tambourine” ^{[15] [16] [17]} .
• Special prize of the student jury of the XII International Festival of television programs and films “Golden Tambourine” ^[18] .
• Diploma of the TV-Anti-Terror Festival and a special prize of the International Law and Society Festival ^[19] .
• The best documentary of the festival "Listopad-2008" ( Belorussian. Listapad-2008 ) ^{[20] [21]} .
• Grand Prix of the X International Television Forum “Together” on September 16, 2009 in Yalta ^{[22] [23]} .

For the film, the producer of the film, Yakov Kaller, was awarded the title “Person of the Year 5769 ” in the “Television” nomination for the film by the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia ^[13] .

• The righteous of the world

• Kiselev list
• Exodus. War book
• Russian partisan saved the lives of 218 residents of the Belarusian village , the newspaper "Moskvichka"
• “Kiselev’s List”
• Inna Gerasimova. “Kiselev's List”: foreword and afterword // “Banks”: Newspaper. - 2008. - No. 07 (108) . - S. 3 .
• Kiselev list. Rescued from Hell Culture Channel
• Kiselyov's list / Documentary / (magazine version) “Charity in Russia Magazine” (neopr.) . rusblago.ru. Date of treatment November 13, 2015.