Editing Roman Polanski (section)

== Early life ==
Roman Polanski was born on 18 August 1933, in [[Paris between the Wars (1918–1939)|interbellum]] Paris. He was the son of Bula (aka "Bella") Katz-Przedborska and Mojżesz (or Maurycy) Liebling (later Polański), a painter and manufacturer of sculptures, who after World War II was known as Ryszard Polański.<ref>Paul Werner, ''Polański. Biografia'', Poznań: Rebis, 2013, p. 12-18.</ref> Polanski's father was Jewish and originally from Poland. Polanski's mother was born in Russia. Her own father was Jewish and mother was a [[Gentile]], but Bula had been raised in the Catholic faith.<ref name="Guardian profile" /><ref name="Roman Polanski, UXL Newsmakers, Find Articles at BNET.com" /><ref name="polanski8" /><ref>Paul Werner, ''Polański. Biografia'', Poznań: Rebis, 2013, p. 12-13.</ref> She had a daughter, Annette, by her previous husband. Annette survived [[Auschwitz]], where her mother was murdered, and left Poland forever for France.<ref name="Biography" /> Polanski's parents were both agnostics.<ref name="adherents"/> Polanski later stated that he was an atheist.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cronin |first=Paul |title=Roman Polanski: Interviews |publisher=[[University Press of Mississippi]] |year=2005 |page=17 |isbn=1578067995}}</ref>

=== World War II and the Holocaust ===
The Polański family moved back to Kraków, Poland, in early 1937,<ref name="auto1"/> and were living there when World War&nbsp;II began with the [[invasion of Poland]]. [[General Government|Kraków was soon occupied]] by the German forces, and the racist and anti-Semitic [[Nuremberg Laws]] made the Polańskis targets of persecution, forcing them into the [[Kraków Ghetto]], along with [[Holocaust in Poland|thousands of the city's Jews]].<ref name="INA"/> Around the age of six, Polanski attended primary school for only a few weeks, until "all the Jewish children were abruptly expelled", writes biographer [[Christopher Sandford (biographer)|Christopher Sandford]]. That initiative was soon followed by the requirement that all Jewish children over the age of twelve wear white armbands, with a blue [[Star of David]] imprinted, for visual identification. After he was expelled, Polanski would not be allowed to enter another classroom for six years.<ref name="RPinterviewsxv" />{{rp|18}}<ref name="fail">{{cite book |last=Polański |first=Roman |title=Roman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UkMRxv820VwC&q=%22hadn%27t+intended+to+give+refuge%22 |url-status=live |publisher=Morrow (ibidem) |date=1984 |page=93 |isbn=0688026214 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101113257/https://books.google.com/books?id=UkMRxv820VwC&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22hadn%27t+intended+to+give+refuge%22 |archive-date=1 January 2016}}</ref>

Polanski's father was transferred, along with thousands of other Jews, to [[Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp|Mauthausen]], a group of 49 German concentration camps in Austria. His mother, who was four months pregnant at the time, was taken to [[Auschwitz]] and killed in the [[gas chamber]] soon after arriving. The forced exodus took place immediately after the German liquidation of the [[Warsaw Ghetto]], a real-life backdrop to Polanski's film ''[[The Pianist (2002 film)|The Pianist]]'' (2002). Polanski, who was then hiding from the Germans, saw his father being marched off with a long line of people. Polanski tried getting closer to his father to ask him what was happening and got within a few yards. His father saw him, but afraid his son might be spotted by the German soldiers, whispered (in Polish), "Get lost!"<ref name="RPinterviewsxv" />{{rp|24}}

Polanski escaped the Kraków Ghetto in 1943 and survived with [[Rescue of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust|the help]] of some Polish Roman Catholics, including a woman who had promised Polanski's father that she would shelter the boy.<ref name="RPinterviewsxv" />{{rp|21}} Polanski attended church, learned to recite Catholic prayers by heart, and behaved outwardly as a Roman Catholic, although he was never baptized. His efforts to blend into a Catholic household failed miserably at least once, when the parish priest visiting the family posed questions to him one-on-one about the [[catechism]], and ultimately said, "You aren't one of us".<ref name="Roman73 snippet">{{cite book |last=Polański |first=Roman |title=Roman |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UkMRxv820VwC&q=%22Black+Virgin+of+Czestochowa+above+my+desk%22 |url-status=live |publisher=Morrow (ibidem) |year=1984 |page=73 |isbn=0688026214 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160101113257/https://books.google.com/books?id=UkMRxv820VwC&q=%22Black+Virgin+of+Czestochowa+above+my+desk%22&dq=%22Black+Virgin+of+Czestochowa+above+my+desk%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FTQBU-CyI5PpoATJiIDACg&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA |archive-date=1 January 2016}}</ref> The punishment for helping a Jew in German-occupied Poland was death.<ref>{{cite book |last=Chesnoff |first=Richard Z. |title=Pack of Thieves: How Hitler and Europe Plundered the Jews and Committed the Greatest Theft in History |url=https://archive.org/details/packofthieves00rich_0 |url-access=registration |publisher=Anchor Books |location=New York City |date=1999 |page=[https://archive.org/details/packofthieves00rich_0/page/175 175] |isbn=978-0385720649}}</ref>

As Polanski roamed the countryside trying to survive in a Poland now occupied by German troops, he witnessed many horrors, such as being "forced to take part in a cruel and sadistic game in which German soldiers took shots at him for target practice". The author [[Ian Freer]] concludes that Polanski's constant childhood fears and dread of violence have contributed to the "tangible atmospheres he conjures up on film".<ref name="Freer" /> By the time the war ended in 1945, a [[Poland#World War II|fifth of the Polish population]] had been killed,<ref name="countrystudies" /> the vast majority being civilians. Of those deaths, 3 million were Polish Jews, which accounted for 90% of the country's Jewish population.<ref name="holocaust" /> According to Sandford, Polanski would use the memory of his mother, her dress and makeup style, as a physical model for [[Faye Dunaway]]'s character in his film ''[[Chinatown (1974 film)|Chinatown]]'' (1974).<ref name="RPinterviewsxv" />{{rp|13}}

In October 2020, Polanski went back to Poland and paid respects to a Polish couple who helped him hide and escape the Nazis. Stefania and Jan Buchala were recognized by [[Yad Vashem]], Israel's Holocaust memorial, as "Righteous Among the Nations". Polanski recalled Stefania Buchala as being an "extremely noble" and courageous person.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/roman-polanski-honors-poles-saved-holocaust-73632669|title=Roman Polanski honors Poles who saved him from the Holocaust|website=ABC News|first=Monika|last=Scislowska|agency=Associated Press|date=15 October 2020|access-date=21 December 2021}}</ref>

=== After the war ===
After the war, Polanski was reunited with his father and moved back to Kraków. His father remarried on 21 December 1946 to Wanda Zajączkowska (whom Polanski had never liked) and died of cancer in 1984. Time repaired the family contacts; Polanski visited them in Kraków, and relatives visited him in Hollywood and Paris. Polanski recalls the villages and families he lived with as relatively primitive by European standards:
{{blockquote|They were really simple Catholic peasants. This Polish village was like the English village in ''Tess''. Very primitive. No electricity. The kids with whom I lived didn't know about electricity&nbsp;... they wouldn't believe me when I told them it was enough to turn on a switch!<ref name="RS" />
}}

Polanski stated that "you must live in a Communist country to really understand how bad it can be. Then you will appreciate capitalism."<ref name="RS" /> He also remembered events at the war's end and his reintroduction to mainstream society when he was 12, forming friendships with other children, such as [[Roma Ligocka]], [[Ryszard Horowitz]] and his family.<ref name="polanski1" />

=== Introduction to movies ===
Polanski's fascination with cinema began very early when he was around age four or five. He recalls this period in an interview:
{{blockquote|Even as a child, I always loved cinema and was thrilled when my parents would take me before the war. Then we were put into the ghetto in Krakòw and there was no cinema, but the Germans often showed newsreels to the people outside the ghetto, on a screen in the market place. And there was one particular corner where you could see the screen through the barbed wire. I remember watching with fascination, although all they were showing was the German army and German tanks, with occasional anti-Jewish slogans inserted on cards.<ref name="playboy"/>
}}

After the war, Polanski watched films, either at school or at a local cinema, using whatever pocket money he had. Polanski writes, "Most of this went on the movies, but movie seats were dirt cheap, so a little went a long way. I lapped up every kind of film."<ref name="polanski2" /> As time went on, movies became more than an escape into entertainment, as he explains:
{{blockquote|Movies were becoming an absolute obsession with me. I was enthralled by everything connected with the cinema—not just the movies themselves but the aura that surrounded them. I loved the luminous rectangle of the screen, the sight of the beam slicing through the darkness from the projection booth, the miraculous synchronization of sound and vision, even the dusty smell of the tip-up seats. More than anything else though, I was fascinated by the actual mechanics of the process.<ref name="polanski3" />
}}

Polanski was above all influenced by [[Carol Reed]]'s ''[[Odd Man Out]]'' (1947) – "I still consider it as one of the best movies I've ever seen and a film which made me want to pursue this career more than anything else ... I always dreamt of doing things of this sort or that style. To a certain extent I must say that I somehow perpetuate the ideas of that movie in what I do."<ref name="polanski">{{cite book |last=Cronin |first=Paul |title=Roman Polanski: Interviews |publisher=University Press of Mississippi |location=Jackson, MS |date=2005 |pages=159, 189 |isbn=978-1-57806-800-5}}</ref>