The first feature film to be made about the Holocaust and shot in Auschwitz-Birkenau, barely two years after liberation, Wanda Jakubowska's harrowing 1948 The Last Stage (Ostatni etap) focuses on the women prisoners of Auschwitz. The film is infused with Jakubowska’s desire to show how internationalism and female solidarity could win the fight against fascism.
Jakubowska's film not only documents the horrors of the camp, but defined and inspired all future representations of the Holocaust - as well as being a rallying call for her political beliefs and a celebration of women’s courage in the face of unspeakable barbarity.
