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Roman Polanski before he met Sharon Tate
the story of the director’s early life
In 1966, Writer/Director Polanski was considered the enfant terrible of new European cinema — his films Knife in the Water, Repulsion and Cul-De-Sac had established him as the auteur of modern suspense. His fourth feature film Rosemary’s Baby (released June 1968) would propel him into cinematic superstardom.
Born in Paris in 1933, Roman was a Holocaust survivor. The son of Polish parents — a Jewish father and a half-Jewish mother who was raised Roman Catholic — he also had an older half-sister, Annette. The family moved back to Poland when Roman was 2-years old. The Nazis invaded three years later. Roman’s father, a painter and sculptor, changed his surname from Liebling to Polanski (a less Semitic name). The name change would not permit them, however, to escape persecution. The Polanski family was herded with other Jews into a squalid ghetto in Krakow.
Author Thomas Keneally (Schindler’s List) wrote,
“Roman’s response to the occupying power was that ‘if only one could explain to them that we had done nothing wrong, the Germans would realize that it was all a gigantic misunderstanding.’ His mother had to tell him the meaning of the star he wore on his arm.” — “From Holocaust to Hollywood” by Thomas Keneally ©January 1984 The New York Times
