The Big Chief

After thwarting the Gestapo, Leopold Trepper—a Polish Jew and mastermind of the Red Orchestra spy ring—must, in the twilight of his life, foil yet another plot, this time orchestrated by his own country’s secret services.Once a celebrated Resistance hero, Trepper is now a pariah in 1970s Poland, a country still plagued by the deep roots of antisemitism. Branded a conspirator, he becomes a marked man, placed under house arrest and forbidden from leaving the country. In France, a committee rallies to defend his cause and secure his departure for Israel, where he hopes to settle. Star journalist Jean-Pierre Elkabbach films Trepper’s secluded life in Warsaw, but the footage is seized. With no way out, Trepper resorts to his final weapon: a hunger strike.Like a true spy thriller, The Big Chief delves into the hidden corners of World War II and the upheavals that followed. Drawing from an astonishing wealth of archival material, Tomasz Wolski retraces Trepper’s extraordinary fate—was he an undeniable hero, or a masterful fabricator in the grand narrative of the 20th century?