page_title: Igo Sym
section_title: Collaboration
hierarchical_section_title: Igo Sym / Collaboration
context_page_description: Karol Juliusz "Igo" Sym was a Polish actor and collaborator with Nazi Germany. He was killed in Warsaw by members of the Polish resistance movement.
context_section_description: After the Invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, Sym stayed in German-occupied Warsaw. Known before the war for his pro-German stance, the actor signed the Volksliste, thus becoming a Volksdeutscher.  Because of his fame, the Germans considered him an asset in legitimizing their authority. The General Government's propaganda department therefore made him director of Warsaw's Theater der Stadt Warschau, formerly Teatr Polski (the Polish Theater). Sym was also director of the Nur für Deutsche cinema, the Helgoland (formerly the Palladium), and licensee of the Teatr Komedia.
  Sometime in late 1939, Sym became a Gestapo agent. According to preserved documents, he had collaborated with Berlin since before 1 September 1939. At the beginning of the war he helped set a trap which caught actress Hanka Ordonówna (who had been Sym's prewar screen partner and a friend from Warsaw's theaters). Polish resistance quickly learned about this, and a group of agents led by Teatr Komedia actor Roman Niewiarowicz started tracking Sym's activities.
  On 10 October 1941 the film Heimkehr debuted in Berlin's Ufa-Palast am Zoo cinema. The Nazi propaganda movie directed by Gustav Ucicky told a story about the pre-1939 German minority in Poland's Volhynia, resettled during Nazi–Soviet population transfers. The Germans, presented as noble, peace-loving people, were brutally persecuted by vicious Poles. In the final scene, Polish soldiers lead arrested Germans to execution; however, Wehrmacht airplanes and tanks appear, saving the community. Igo Sym did not perform in the film, but he actively collaborated in its production, casting Polish actors who were more or less willing to take part. Several actors refused, including Kazimierz Junosza-Stępowski. Sym finally found some actors who were accepted by director Ucicky. After the war, these actors were punished for collaborating with the Germans.
  Igo Sym's collaboration with the Germans contrasts with the conduct of his younger brother Ernest who, during his official activities as a chemist, clandestinely produced explosives for Poland's Home Army.
caption: On film set of Heimkehr, 1941
exif: {}