Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

The U.S. Tried to Arrest Roman Polanski At Jewish Museum Opening

Getty Images

The United States government still really wants to arrest director Roman Polanski —  and what better place to catch him than the Polish Jewish history museum?

Polanski, who was arrested (but never sentenced) for sexually assaulting a 13-year old girl in 1977, was attending the grand opening of Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw last Tuesday when U.S. authorities contacted Polish officials. The Holocaust survivor was questioned by police but not arrested.

“From the point of view of Polish history,” this attempt by the U.S. “showed absolute ignorance,” Tomasz Nalecz, an advisor to the Polish president Bronislaw Komorowski, told the BBC.

Polanski’s mother was murdered in Auschwitz.

The U.S. first tried to extradite Polanski in Switzerland in 2009, 32 years after his alleged crime, while he was being given a tribute award at the Zurich Film Festival. He was arrested and held in a Swiss detention center for 67 days but he was eventually freed after he posted a bail of $4.5 million.

Polanski, who directed classic films such as “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Chinatown,” and the Oscar-winner “The Pianist,” was arrested in Los Angeles back in 1977 after he allegedly had sex with then 13-year old Samantha Gailey (now Samantha Geimer). The details of the case are still messy — and more than a little disturbing. During a probationary period, he fled to England to avoid a trial, and he has lived in Europe ever since.

In 2011, Polanski apologized for the act in the documentary, “Roman Polanski, A Film Memoir.” Geimer had already publicly forgiven Polanski and stated that having him come back to the U.S. for a trial would create a media circus that would make things worse.

The latest arrest attempt looks especially awkward as Polanski has been to Poland several times in recent years. In fact, his next movie, about the infamous 1894 Alfred Dreyfus affair (during which a French Jewish officer was wrongfully accused of treason, and was later pardoned) is currently set to film in Poland.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.