In the face of overwhelming brutality, Prisoner No. A26188: Henia Bryer is a raw and deeply emotional testimony about survival and persistence that should be a must-see for generations to come.
Written by Lisa Bryer, renowned producer of the Last King of Scotland, the film includes 43 minutes of intimate testimony from Bryer’s Aunt Henia, a lovely, articulate 86-year-old woman who recalls her Having survived several concentration camps, the Germans invaded their native Poland in 1939.
Henia was a teenager when she and her family were rounded up along with 30,000 others and taken to the Radom slum. At the war’s end, she lost her father, sister, and disabled brother, and was forced to fight for her life in the most hellish environment in recorded history.
She also faced some of the Holocaust’s most notorious monsters. She was sent to four concentration camps, including Kraszow, the hauntingly terrifying place depicted in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning film Schindler’s List. There, she meets the camp’s commander, Amon Goss, who is played by actor Ralph Fiennes in the film. Henia remembers the random way Goeth killed concentration camp prisoners on a whim.
She was later taken to Auschwitz, where her fate was quickly decided by one of history’s most brutal figures, the Doctor. Josef Mengele made up his mind.
After liberation, she met her mother again, married, moved to South Africa, and started her own family. Her nightmare may have ended more than 70 years ago, but the atrocities she witnessed are as fresh as the day it happened.
Henia recounts the events with incredible calm and clarity of detail. She tells her story to remind younger generations of a time in history when unchecked power and prejudice led to the massacre of millions.
Prisoner No. A26188: Henia Bryer makes the horrors of the Holocaust vivid and concrete, but it also celebrates the possibility of surviving the most horrific ordeals with an open heart free from hatred.
Directed by: Lisa Bryer
