Three Minutes: A Lengthening

David Kurtz was born in Poland but emigrated with his wife Liza to the United States in the 1890s, going on to become a successful businessman in Brooklyn, New York City.^[3] In 1938, he went on a holiday around Europe, and filmed his trip.^[5]

In 2009 Kurtz's grandson Glenn found the footage in Kurtz's home in Palm Beach, Florida.^[4][6] Among the footage was three minutes of a Jewish community in a then-unknown location. The footage was shared with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, who restored it and posted it on their website.^[5] In 2011, Maurice Chandler's granddaughter recognised him in the footage; Chandler subsequently identified the footage as being of the Jewish community in Nasielsk. Chandler had survived the Holocaust by remaining in Poland using false identification documents.^[7] Kurtz documented the discovery of the footage, as well as the process of identifying its location as well as the people within it, in his book Three Minutes in Poland, which was published in 2014.^[6]

Of Nasielsk's estimated 3000-strong Jewish community, 150 members are featured in the footage, although less than 15 were able to have their identities recognised.^[8]

Three Minutes consists almost entirely of Kurtz's original footage, with the exception of a brief scene showing a digital reconstruction of Nasielsk's market square as it would have appeared at the time the footage was shot.^[6]

The film currently has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, indicating critical acclaim. The website's critics consensus reads, "Three Minutes - A Lengthening movingly captures a moment in time while honoring lives soon to be cut short by unimaginable horror."^[9] In the United Kingdom, the film premiered on BBC Four, where it aired as part of the channel's Storyville series to mark Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January 2023.^[10] As of February 2023 it is available for over a year on BBC iPlayer.^[11]