The film honours Stanislaw Marusarz a hero outside the Olympic arena.
New film about Olympian and Hero of Polish resistance
by Philip Barker
The passing of the great Hungarian Olympic gymnastics gold medallist Ágnes Keleti last month saw many tributes which remembered her remarkable wartime experiences when she evaded capture by the Nazis. It is a story which has parallels elsewhere in Europe.
Filmmaker Andras Killyeni has recently produced a short film about Polish Olympic nordic skier Stanislaw Marusarz, sentenced to death for his work in the Polish underground during the war years. He hid in Borsafüred and eluded the clutches of the Gestapo with the help of others who refused to betray him.
Killyeni’s film includes some remarkable photographs and an interview with the daughter of Gyula Belloni, an Olympic athlete who ran over 1500m at the 1928 Amsterdam Games and later became a cross country skier of note.
Marusarz is believed to have met Belloni when the pair competed at the 1936 Garmisch Partenkirchen Winter Olympics.
During the war, Belloni helped Marusarz by finding him work at Borsafüred.
Marusarz, who came from the Polish resort of Zakopane, had competed at the 1932 Lake Placid Winter Olympics in cross country skiing, ski jumping and Nordic Combined. His four Olympic appearances spanned 20 years. His farewell came in ski jumping at the 1952 Oslo Games when he also carried the Hungarian flag at the Opening Ceremony.
Marusarz lived to become an elder statesman of the sport and died at the age of 80 in 1993.
Killyeni is an information technology engineer by profession but holds a doctorate in Sports History from the Semmelweis University in Budapest. As a member of the Hungarian Olympic Academy, he passionately believes in using advanced video techniques in storytelling,
“Although we have technological innovation at our fingertips, the sport history research is still old fashioned, almost as it was 100 years ago” says Killyeni.
I believe we need to bring technical innovation into sport history as much as possible so my idea is to use modern video techniques to tell the stories and I hope to get funding to do more films.”
ISOH has also published his earlier short film on the ski resort at Borsafüred.
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