I put off writing about this scene yesterday because it is difficult. In the published script for The Dekalog, the two speeches that dominate this segment ended up in the film nearly word for word, so Kieslowski knew that the detail was necessary.

So how do I convey every detail without repeating the speeches? It’s impossible. The scene needs to be experienced because it could stand alone as a short film by itself. Elżbieta’s story comes directly from Hanna Krall, it was a real life incident with a very different ending. But I’ll save that for another episode.

We are in a philosophy class lecture hall. Elżbieta is sitting in. There is a also a student from Nigeria using a translator in the scene — explained in the published script, shown but not explained here. There is also The Watcher in the audience, and he will cast an expression on Zofia at a critical point in the lecture.

They are going over what are considered “ethical hell” stories, which students are then supposed to go back and figure out the ethical choices made along the way and have a discussion about decisions and outcomes.

Kieslowski starts off the ethical tales with a bit of self reference. A student tells the story of episode 2 of The Dekalog, about the doctor and Dorota’s ethical dance over the health of her husband and the fate of her unborn child. Zofia declares that she knows about this story — Warsaw is a small place she says (she also happens to live in the same housing complex.) And she adds that the important part of the story to know is that the child is safe and alive.

This comment catches Elżbieta’s attention, who gets up from her seat, tape recorder in hand, and moves into the first row. She apologizes, saying that she couldn’t hear properly from farther back in the hall. Zofia repeats that the most important fact is that the child is alive.

This leads Elżbieta to request an opportunity to tell a story herself. Zofia declares that everyone is equal here, please share with us.

The short form of her story is this: a six year old girl in 1943 Poland is taken to an apartment where a young couple resides. There is someone else in the room, an older man in a wheel chair, his back turned to everyone. The plan is for this girl to be unofficially adopted by the couple, who will in effect be vouching that the girl has been baptized.

I’m missing key details in this telling, such as the fact that Elżbieta is wearing around her neck both a cross and a Jewish pendant (I apologize for not knowing its specific name.) But the outcome of this meeting is that the woman in the couple tells the man who escorted Elżbieta that she’s sorry, but they cannot help her — they are staunch Catholics and they would be bearing false witness if they vouched for her Baptism.

The discussion opens up to the class. There’s some pulling apart of the tale — could there be another justification for the action? Doesn’t the false witness claim only exist for neighbors in the Dekalog? One student says the justification is likely fear of what the Nazis might do to the girl and to them, which leads Elżbieta to question whether this justifies the actions.

What is clearly obvious by the end of the scene is that Elżbieta was that little girl and Zofia was the young woman who turned her away. This is the story that Hanna Krall gave Kieslowski and he told it masterfully.

A viewer might expect a story about holocaust ethics to spring from this — and there have been dozens of films over the past 80 years that took up similar topics. But Kieslowski is not interested in that kind of story. He wants this to be an intimate story about two women and their crossed paths.

But as this scene comes to a close we can sit in this uneasy knowing-but-not-fully-telling moment where an eminent ethical philosopher is confronted with a decision that could have led to the death of a child.

It’s somewhat disappointing that Kieslowski decides to evade this confrontation.