A Generation (1955)

Tadeusz Lomnicki: Stach Mazur

Photos 

Quotes 

• [first lines] 

  Stach Mazur : I was born here in the slums, on the outskirts of Warsaw. I grew up in poverty. Here I made my first friends and had my first lessons. I often had it rough as a kid, because I couldn't tell my friends from my enemies. I was too trusting and relied on my swift legs and strong fists. My Ma kept me on a short leash and tried to push me off to work. But I took it as typical woman's nagging, preferring to play knives with my buddies instead.

• Sekula : There once was a wise bearded man by the name of Karl Marx. He once wrote that workers were paid just barely enough to renew their strength. These days we don't even get that. We have to scrounge to survive.

  Stach Mazur : Can't we workers do anything?

  Sekula : If you only knew, my friend, how much blood has been spilled over this simple arithmetic - among other things. Workers fight for their rights. They always have.

• Stach Mazur : Where are your dogs, Krone?

  Jasio Krone : The boss gave them to the dogcatcher. He turned me out and gave my dogs to the dogcatcher. You see, Stach, this is my last day here. Tell me, how does a man live without work?

  Stach Mazur : Old age isn't treating you well, Krone.

  Jasio Krone : You'll be old one day too. Not that I wish it on you, because I've taken a liking to you. But as it was, so will it be.

  Stach Mazur : Come now. Not necessarily.

• Sekula : You said there was a girl?

  Stach Mazur : And what a girl!

• Sekula : Hello Dorota. I'd like you to meet this young man. A new recruit, and not a bad one, I believe.

  Dorota : Time will tell. What shall we call you? Tiger? Panther? Poppy? Animal, vegetable or mineral?

  Stach Mazur : This is no laughing matter. Give me an ordinary human name.

  Dorota : You have a bit of the country about you. I'll call you "Bartek."

  Stach Mazur : Then Bartek it is.

• Dorota : Do you know what the People's Guard is? Our Workers' Party? You know who it is you want to join?

  Stach Mazur : Yes. Well, maybe not exactly, but - please don't laugh - but, I feel it.

  Dorota : I'm not laughing. You may make a good member of the guard.

• Jacek (as Ryszard Kotas) : I'm a communist too.

  Stach Mazur : You're a fool, not a communist. Better be careful what you say. A communist! Communists fight!

• Stach Mazur : Dorota. She supplied us with pamphlets and guns. She gave us advice. My respect for her collided in my thoughts with a longing to stroke her hair.

• Stach Mazur : Attention! This is Dorota, the political officer in our area.

  Mundek : You mean, the "officeress."

• Dorota : Our organization is a combat group, not a gang of gunslingers.

  Stach Mazur : [to Jancek]  See?

  Dorota : We're not concerned about the Jerries. We're concerned about you. We want you to retain your humanity through all this.

• Dorota : You're a strange one. Comrades say you're brave, yet you're such a child.

  Stach Mazur : Me brave? I get scared. Very scared. When I think how I too may be shot before this is over and never live to see my future. And how, if I got killed, I'd never see you again.

• Dorota : Could it be just our imagination? Could it be it's easier to die for a cause than to live for it?

  [kiss] 

  Dorota : My real name is Eve.

  Stach Mazur : I'll be damned. It is worth fighting for. It is worth living. It is worth living.

  Dorota : It is curfew time. You can't go out in the street.

  [kiss] 

• New Underground Recruit : [final lines]  Do you sell down feathers?

  Stach Mazur : Yes. I sell down feathers.