Anna Borkowska (actress)

Anna Borkowska (died 2008, in Tehran) was a Polish war refugee who settled in Iran. She was an actress and vocal teacher.[1][2] As a child, after the Soviet invasion of Poland she was forced to leave home with some of her family members and transported to a forced labor camp in Siberia in the Soviet Union. She was one of the 120,000 Polish refugees who fled the Soviet Union with Anders' Army after the Axis invasion in 1941. She settled in Tehran.

Anna Borkowska
Anna Borkowska at her home in Tehran in 1999 with a black-and-white picture of herself as a girl behind her, fot. Ivonna Nowicka
Born
Anna Borkowska

(1916-09-23)23 September 1916
Mykolaiv, Russian Empire
Died3 February 2008(2008-02-03) (aged 91)
Tehran, Iran
Other namesAnna z Dunin Borkowska-Afchami Mohadżer
Citizenship
  • Poland
  • Iran
Occupation
  • Actress
Children1

Borkowska is best known to international audiences for her role as the kindly elderly woman who aids a determined little girl in the quest for the perfect goldfish in Jafar Panahi's 1995 film The White Balloon.[3]

Borkowska is also the main character of Khosrow Sinai's The Lost Requiem (original title in Persian: مرثیه گمشده, Marsiye-ye gomshode, released in 1983), which is a documentary about the Poles who found refuge in Iran during World War II, after being forcibly taken to Soviet labor camps in Siberia.

Borkowska is buried in the Polish cemetery at Doulab in Tehran.

Legacy

A lecture on Borkowska, on her youth in Poland, the hardships in Soviet slavery, and her life and film career in Iran was delivered by Polish specialist in Iranian studies Ivonna Nowicka in June 2019 in Warsaw[4] [5] and in September 2019 in Vinnytsia, Ukraine.[6][7] Written and photographic and unique film material from the archives of Nowicka and of researcher Alireza Doulatshahi was used. The lecture in Warsaw is available on Youtube.[8]

References
  1. "Forgotten Chapter of WWII Lies Buried in Iranian Graveyard". LA Times. November 5, 2000.
  2. Faruqi, Anwar (October 8, 2000). "History buried in Polish graves". Spartanburg Herald Journal. Spartanburg, S.C. Associated Press. p. A20. Retrieved October 14, 2019.
  3. The White Balloon review, 1-World Festival of Foreign Films Archived November 24, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
  4. "Wykład Ivonny Nowickiej w ramach Klubu Historycznego im. gen. Stefana Roweckiego „Grota" – Warszawa, 25 czerwca 2019" [A Lecture by Ivonna Nowicka]. ipn.gov.pl. Retrieved June 29, 2019. (pol.)
  5. "Z sowieckich łagrów do irańskiego kina. Wykład o Annie Borkowskiej - 25 czerwca" [From Soviet Forced Labor Camps to Iranian Cinema - 15 June]. centrumedu.ipn.gov.pl. Retrieved February 27, 2022. (pol.).
  6. "Анна Борковська - з радянського табору до іранського кіно" [Anna Borkovska - from Labour Camp to Iranian Cinema.]. m.facebook.com. 5 September 2019. Retrieved February 27, 2022. (ukr.) (pol.)
  7. "A report on the lecture on Anna Borkovska by Ivonna Nowicka with pictures". www.facebook.com. 6 September 2019. Retrieved February 27, 2022. (ukr.) (pol.)
  8. "Przystanek Historia - wykład o Annie Borkowskiej-Afchami Mohadżer" [History Station - A lecture on Anna Borkowska-Afkhami Mohajer.]. www.youtube.com. 8 July 2019. Retrieved February 27, 2022. (pol.)


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