海角大神

'After Auschwitz' follows the lives of six women survivors

The film鈥檚 thesis is that the struggle to survive did not end with the camps. Each of the women profiled recounts, with varying degrees of intensity, the difficulties in creating a 'normal' life in a world where the concept of 'home' can no longer fully resonate.

Jon Kean鈥檚 documentary 鈥淎fter Auschwitz鈥� follows the lives of six women survivors who, in their teens and early 20s after the liberation of Auschwitz, turned their back on the Eastern Europe that had for the most part turned its back on them and made new lives for themselves in America. (A few of the women have died since the film was shot; the others continue to reside in the Los Angeles area.)

The film鈥檚 thesis is that the struggle to survive did not end with the camps. Each of the women profiled recounts, with varying degrees of intensity, the difficulties in creating a 鈥渘ormal鈥� life in a world where the concept of 鈥渉ome鈥� can no longer fully resonate. Renee Firestone, one of the women interviewed, speaks of Steven Spielberg as 鈥渙ur hero鈥� for creating the Shoah Foundation to document more than a hundred thousand hours of videotaped Holocaust survivors' testimony. Grade: B (This movie is not rated.)