Arcadia Public Library

In 1943 a group of 1434 Polish refugees from the Soviet Russia, including a few hundred orphans, arrived in an abandoned ranch of Santa Rosa at the invitation of the Mexican President. Santa Rosa, near Leon, Mexico became their home for the few years to come. Earlier in December 1942, Prime Minister of Polish Government in Exile - General Władysław Sikorski arrived in Mexico to sign an agreement with President of Mexico Avila Camacho to set up such...

The Allies called him Garbo. The Nazis dubbed him Alaric. Both sides in World War II were sure Juan Pujol Garcia was their man. In reality, Pujol was a double agent - and his final allegiance was to the Allies. From the comfort of Lisbon, Garbo fed false information to the Nazis and fabricated a network of phantom agents across Europe. Although he never fired a single shot, Garbo helped to save thousands of lives, most notably by misinforming the...

Stationed in a secluded Bulgarian village in 1943, Walter, an artist and sergeant in the Wehrmacht, lives an almost idyllic life far away from the war. Then one day a transit camp is set up for Jews arriving from Greece. Ruth, one of the Greek Jews, asks Walter to help a pregnant woman in the camp. At first he refuses, but then changes his mind and sends a doctor into the camp ... Stars, based on scriptwriter Angel Wagenstein's personal experiences...

Account of the last days of life of the legendary Polish pedagogue Janusz Korczak and his heroic dedication to protecting Jewish orphans during the war.

J'Accuse, Gance's extraordinary breakthrough work, is a World War I drama considered to be one of the most technically advanced films of the era and the first major pacifist film. It was referred to by Gance as "A human cry against the bellicose din of armies." This seminal cinematic achievement stars Marise Dauvray as Edith, a young woman who is unhappily married to an older man, François (Séverin-Mars), but is actually in love with a young poet,...

The Rape of Europa tells the epic story of the systematic theft, deliberate destruction and miraculous survival of Europe's art treasures during the Third Reich and the Second World War. On a journey through seven countries, the film takes the audience into the violent whirlwind of fanaticism, greed, and warfare that threatened to wipe out the artistic heritage of Europe. For twelve long years, the Nazis looted and destroyed art on a scale unprecedented...

It is the year 1935: after being released from a concentration camp, Arnold remains working for the resistance movement in Hamburg. He has mixed feelings about his new contact agent; he almost envies the man's self-confidence, but cannot help mistrusting him. And this time, when casualties are heavy, only Walter emerges unscathed. Is he an informer? Based on Willi Bredel's book of the same name.

Two worthy **Academy Award** nominees from 1950's *Sunset Boulevard* - actor William Holden and director Billy Wilder - re-teamed three years later for the gripping World War II drama, STALAG 17. The result was another Best Director nomination for Wilder (his fourth), and the elusive Best Actor Oscar for Holden. Holden portrays the jaded, scheming Sergeant J.J. Sefton, a prisoner at the notorious German prison camp, who spends his days dreaming up...

"Days Of Waiting is a poignant documentary about an extraordinary woman, artist Estelle Ishigo, one of the few Caucasians to be interned with 110,000 Japanese Americans in 1942. When internment came, she refused to be separated from her Japanese American husband and lived with him for four years behind barbed wire in the desolate Heart Mountain camp in Wyoming. During her internment, the artist recorded the rigors and deprivations of camp life with...

In 1942 a secret U.S. military program was launched to recruit women to the war effort. But unlike the efforts to recruit Rosie the Riveter to the factory, this clandestine search targeted female mathematicians who would become human 'computers' for the U.S. Army. From the bombing of Axis Europe to the assaults on Japanese strongholds, women worked around-the-clock six days a week, creating ballistics tables that proved crucial to Allied success....