Essay Questions

What are some of the reasons that Kitty attributes her survival to?

Kitty attributes her survival to a number of factors that on the face of it seem unrelated, and almost random. For example, when she was at Auschwitz she contracted typhoid, a disease carried in dirty, contaminated water. This was most likely due to her working as a latrine cleaner, and having to clean out the mass-use toilets. Before the German forces had occupied Poland, Kitty's father had insisted that she get a typhoid vaccine, in case she should ever need to be protected from the disease. He didn't know then the circumstances in which this vaccination would save her life, but it did; she recovered, and throughout her illness was physically able to work, protecting her from being listed for death.

Another seemingly unrelated fact that saved Kitty's life was her mother's ability to speak very proper, formal German. When her mother was listed for evacuation from Auschwitz, and Kitty was not, she spoke to the camp commandant in her perfect German, and asked that her daughter be allowed to evacuate with her. Kitty believed it was the respect of using the language correctly that persuaded the commandant to agree. This enabled mother and daughter to continue to experience their ordeal together, which gave them a mutual strength, and enabled them to make it out of the death camps alive.

Why does Kitty go back to Auschwitz?

Kitty made a commitment when she survived the death camps; she determined that the rest of her life would be dedicated to remembrance, and to telling the world not only her own story of survival, but also the stories of those who did not survive. Making the film is to bring her words to life; now she is not just recounting her story to an audience who are imagining what the camp looked like, but she is describing what happened in the very place that it happened. This is far more hard-hitting and evocative.

She also wants to show how young she was when she experienced these things. This is why she is accompanied by two high school girls the same age she was when she was taken to the camp. This really emphasizes her youth at the time of her ordeal and also emphasizes the difference between teen girls in German occupied Poland, and teen girls in a free country like America.