At the age of 96, the remarkably youthful and lucid Susan Spatz recounts her own horrifying experiences during the Holocaust, along with the compelling tale of her postwar return to normal life, which turned out to be as confusing, disappointing, and often unhappy as "normalcy" can be. Born in Vienna in 1922, Spatz lived a privileged existence until the Third Reich made life hell for her and fellow European Jews in Berlin, Vienna, and Prague. Eventually imprisoned in the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, Spatz endured tremendous suffering, although she also displayed a knack for learning how to lessen the chances of death by being in the right places at the right times (such as working in storage rooms to get out of the cold). Transported to the Auschwitz death camp, Spatz was among the few there who were not murdered by the Nazis. In filmmaker Ron Small’s Surviving Birkenau, Spatz describes how the Germans knew full well that they had lost the war and that camps were being liberated as Allied troops advanced, yet they ramped up efforts to kill Jews anyway, for no other reason than to carry on the genocide until being forced to stop. Spatz’s recollections of serendipitous moments that saved her are amazing: sometimes, it was literally a matter of turning left instead of right that kept her alive. A failed marriage after the war was disillusioning, but her subsequent emigration to America and enrollment in college at the age of 40 makes for some entertaining memories, especially about how her daughter—who was already attending the same university—worried about ending up at the same student parties as her mom. A powerful portrait of a lively Holocaust survivor, this is highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (T. Keogh)
Surviving Birkenau: The Dr. Susan Spatz Story
(2018) 71 min. DVD: $24.99 ($199.99 w/PPR). Dreamscape Media. Closed captioned. Volume 34, Issue 4
Surviving Birkenau: The Dr. Susan Spatz Story
Star Ratings
As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
Order From Your Favorite Distributor Today: