A Holocaust survivor heads for America where she dreams of starting a new life, but finds it difficult to put the past behind her, especially when she's forced to relive the nightmare of Aus... Read allA Holocaust survivor heads for America where she dreams of starting a new life, but finds it difficult to put the past behind her, especially when she's forced to relive the nightmare of Auschwitz.A Holocaust survivor heads for America where she dreams of starting a new life, but finds it difficult to put the past behind her, especially when she's forced to relive the nightmare of Auschwitz.
- Won 1 Primetime Emmy
- 3 wins & 1 nomination total
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Did you know
- TriviaRichard Crenna's final acting project. It aired three months after he passed away.
- GoofsWhen the Russians liberate the camp, it looks like a summer evening, or at least somewhere at the end of spring time. It doesn't look like winter at all. There is no snow visible and soldiers don't have any protective clothing. Auschwitz was liberated on 27 January 1945 in midwinter Poland.
- Quotes
Gisella Perl: I can recall wanting to be a doctor when I was a little girl. And I became a doctor... a very good doctor, if I can say that. I knew each child I helped bring into the world was a gift, not from me, but from God. But everything changed when I was deported to Auschwitz and began working there as a doctor. You know about some of the things I did there, for the pregnant women. But yes, I did sent unknowingly many women to their deaths within the day of my arrival. And yes, some of the things I did there, some of the procedures I was forced to do there... they were not honorable. So you are right, I have blood on my hands and believe me I can see it as clearly as you can see this tattoo here on my arm. Both of them will forever identify me as having to be a doctor in Auschwitz, not only to the world, but to myself. And I know this is very difficult for you to understand gentlemen not having been there, but it is the truth. I only did what I had to do to survive. Those of us! who did not survive somedays they are for the best of us. My family, Fredrick my husband, my mother and my father, David, all of my brothers, Emir my... my son. They will not be joining me here; there is no coming home for them. Why did God allow me to survive? Who knows? Well I must believe it was so I can help bring more children into the world. Free children, children with a chance to live. Do you see if I can help deliver on Jewish child, and she grows up to have children and they have children and the nazi's will have not succeeded, do you see this? Yea, one million innocent children were destroyed by them; well I want to help bring one million children into the world. Until the day I die, I must help rebuild what the Nazis worked so hard to do, please gentlemen allow me to do this here in America because if I cannot, then believe me God should have not allow me to live.
However, in my opinion this made-for-television movie did not do justice to Dr. Perl's true life story. The scenes and sets were cheap and recognizable from other contemporary movies made by the same production company. The script (by Anne Meredith) was over-dramatized, stilted and incomplete, e.g. the horror of Dr Perl having to smother to death many live birth children in order to save the lives of their mothers is not mentioned and was one horror, along with the hundreds of abortions she performed to save lives, that haunted Dr. Perl until her death.
The acting and script were so stilted and so melodramatic that it deterred from the true story and made me question if the story could be true or should be taken seriously. Only because I read Dr. Perl's book and many articles about her life that I knew the story to be true. Some of the actors are guilty of terrible overacting, especially in many scenes revealing details of Dr. Perls's life that really call for, nay demand, understatement that would have been far more effective for the realization of the real Dr. Perl and her family. Beau Bridges was good as the lead immigration officer (his part scripted to make him appear as an interrogator for the Inquisition) and Christine Lahti gave a fair, albeit an over the top, melodramatic performance and was often guilty of just plain overacting. Richard Crenna and Bruce Davison are as wooden as manikins in a window display and their roles in this movie still escape me. All in all the script, sets and acting were inferior and deficient.
This story deserves a better treatment than it received in this television movie because Dr. Gisella Perl was a real heroine, not just a death camp survivor.
I give this movie 3/5 stars, mainly for Dr. Perl's true story, not the acting, script or cinematography.
- SpitfireIXB
- May 5, 2010
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