An English-language version of the film “Blood on the pavement. Grodno 1939” about the defense of Grodno (now in Belarus) against the Soviets in September 1939, was created.
Polish soldiers, with the support of the city’s inhabitants, repelled Soviet attacks for three days (September 20 – 22th), destroying more than 20 tanks and armored vehicles. Then they were forced to withdraw to Lithuania. later, the Soviets murdered several hundred defenseless civilians. This is what the film, made by Fundacja Joachima Lelewela and LunarSix in 2014, tells about.
The film was shot in Grodno, but secretly, because the Belarusian authorities see the history of their country differently. For them, the Soviets were not aggressors, and Poles, who constituted the majority of the city’s inhabitants in 1939, were not defenders.
The fictionalized part was shot near Warsaw, in the former Modlin fortress. Numerous members of reenactment groups performed.
The money for the film, among others, came from crowdfunding and a collection organized in Grodno by the Union of Poles in Belarus.
PK