Out of the Ashes Reviews

• No More Fires.....Please!

  
  By ASJ89T42CIUHU on 2005-02-10
  This biographical film relates the story of Auschwitz survivor, Dr. Gisella Perl, providing an important chapter into the lives of those poor souls tortured into unthinkable acts in order to survive during the Holocaust of WWII.
  
  Dr. Gisella Perl (Christine Lahti) arrives in New York with tear filled eyes begging for a new life after WWII. Perl wanted to be a doctor from childhood; she studied hard and managed to open a very successful private practice in Hungary. Her only downfall ended up being her bloodlines and this very strong woman soon found herself carted off to Auschwitz. In a series of flashbacks Perl is examined by a committee of American INS men who are judging her character as a step towards her citizenship. Perl is seen as a survivor who at times may have saved her own life at the sake of others and she is accused of collaborating with the Nazi doctor like the retched Josef Mengele. In actuality Perl saved many women by sacrificing the unborn lives of their fetuses after being tricked by Mengele into submission and having to see what went on behind the walls of Auschwitz. Despite the horrors she witnessed Perl survived to flourish once again and her true story is one of an undying spirit.
  
  Christina Lahti is phenomenal in her role as Gisella Perl. She manages to capture both the brokenness and the strength of this woman with equal determination. Many scenes in this film are absolutely gut-wrenching but entirely important. As stated in the film Auschwitz became its own country and the "rules of humanity" no longer applied. Under these circumstances many atrocities were committed by Nazi's and the Jewish prisoners alike...who is to say what depths a human being can reach under the horror of the Holocaust? In order to thrive in the conditions faced by the prisoners they were forced to either submit and then be burned alive or to calculate another way of living. Gisella Perl did just that. Despite how you feel about abortions this woman had to perform the procedures bare handed and under intolerable conditions in order to save the lives of women prisoners. She was forced under threat to assist in "experiments" beside Mengele and even went as far as saving a female Nazi guard from her own "predicament" without question. Placed in the same circumstances few of us would have ever survived so leave your moral judgments behind on this one. Instead allow this one woman's story to matter so that the ashes of Auschwitz and all of the other concentration camps never establish a foothold in our world again.
  
  
  

• full moral ambiguity with heart

  
  By AUM3YMZ0YRJE0 on 2005-03-12
  When we bought this, I thought, "not another holocaust film!" So there it sat for months, unopened. Then last night, I finally got the courage to try watching it, and became utterly rivetted and deeply moved.
  
  This is the true story of a remarkable survivor, a doctor from Auschwitz, who suffered the loss of her entire family and took many questionable actions to survive. While saving many lives, she also dealt with Mengele and felt that she had violated her oath as a doctor. She is not a simple good guy, but a full-blown character who acknowledges the necessity of her actions and yet feels terrible guilt. Lahti delivers the best performance I have ever seen her give, not as the beautiful young woman she is but prematurely aged and worn. She is totally believable and charismatic.
  
  Though made for TV, this is a great film. Warmly recommended. You will be moved yet again by the one of greatest trajedies of the 20C.
  
  

• Absolutely spellbinding and unforgettable

  
  By A62G4QX6XQVLP on 2006-10-23
  This film, based on the memoirs of Dr. Gisella Perl, is an incredibly powerful, moving, soul-searing, and unforgettable experience. Some people feel that there are too many books and movies about the Shoah, or that after awhile they all start to seem the same because the tale of horror is all-too familiar, but this film is moving proof that that's not the case at all. Every person's story was different and unique in some way. How often have we got something from the perspective of a survivor who was a doctor, and a female doctor no less, at a time when men largely dominated the medical field? Additionally, this story is told in the present day, with flashbacks inserted every so often, instead of told in a linear format or just starting in the present and then having the bulk of the movie be one long flashback before reverting back to the present.
  
  Dr. Perl became the first female doctor, and the first female Jewish doctor at that, in her native village of Sighet in Hungary. Even though her father initially disapproved, ever since she announced her plans as a young girl, she proved to him that she could be an observant Jew, a good doctor, a wife, and a mother. Becoming a doctor didn't cancel out her faith or a more traditional female role, as her family had feared. She was well-liked and trusted by her patients, and was doing very well for herself and for her family. In addition to being an inspiration for having survived what she did, she was also living proof that women can have both a career and a family, instead of just one or the other.
  
  In the present day (a few years after the war), Dr. Perl is being examined for American citizenship. Though she passed all of her medical boards to be allowed to practise medicine in the United States, the question remains of her character and if she collaborated with the Nazis. There's an ocean of misunderstanding between her and her three interrogators, men who were living comfortable lives while she and her family were being treated like sub-humans, while she lost her entire family and had to do the unthinkable to try to save her own life. People who were in the camps often had to do things that many in the outside world would consider immoral, uncivilised, or unthinkable, but one must understand that this was another planet, with its own set of rules and morals. No one should judge anyone else for having done something to preserve one's own life. It's not as though these things were done willingly or voluntarily. "Dr." Mengele seemed to have a great deal of liking and respect for Dr. Perl, and made her work in the excuse of an infirmary at Auschwitz, even once assisting with a Gypsy patient who was pregnant with her second set of twins, a woman who was later murdered after giving birth and taken to be dissected. She was also once called upon to give the infamous sadistic Irma Grese an abortion. However, Dr. Perl did far, far more good than harm, often risking her life to save her patients, doing things that she would have been shot for had she been discovered doing, such as hiding a sick woman during selections in the infirmary and using her and the other doctors' blood as the pretended blood sample of a woman who had typhus. And since her specialty was in gynecology and obstetrics, she gave about a thousand women abortions, performed without any tools no less. She knew that this would save these women's lives, and that if they survived, they could go on to bear another child someday, a child who would be born in freedom. Her goal, her driving force for surviving, was to continue helping to bring life into the world, keeping these Jewish women alive so they would keep their people alive and produce children who would continue to propagate their people, replenishing their ranks after how many people the Nazis slaughtered, a million and a half of whom were just children. It is this message that she is trying to get across to the men deciding her fate as an American citizen and as a doctor.
  
  I'd highly recommend this film, both for its moving and gut-wrenching story and for its unique perspective and structure, quite different from what one usually expects from a film about the Shoah. Christine Lahti as Dr. Perl gives an absolutely brilliant performance, and everything is brought to life so vividly that one can almost feel as though one is right there in that moment, place, and time. I was even moved to tears a few times, something that rarely happens when I watch a film. It's the kind of thing that stays with one for a long time afterward.
  
  

• A Dark and Moving Moment of History and Consequences

  
  By A328S9RN3U5M68 on 2004-04-29
  OUT OF THE ASHES was released last year as a film for television and fortunately it is now available on DVD for extended audience exposure. Directed by Joseph Sargent and based on the autobiography of Dr. Gisella Perl, this film is about the survival of a physician (Dr. Perl) so compassionate in her dedication to her fellow inmates at Auschwitz that, knowing pregnant Jews were among the first to be cremated in the Nazi ovens, knowingly performed numerous abortions and in doing so saved the lives of countless women. As if her rigors of survival in the concentration camps and her loss of her family to the Nazis weren't enough, she immigrated to the United States for refuge, served in menial medical tasks until she was able to take and pass her exams for medical licensure only to face a panel of folk who declare her a criminal for her role in the concentration camps and make every attempt to prevent her from practicing medicine in the USA. How she survives all of this constitutes the message of this powerful film, but to divulge the ending would diminish the impact for the new viewer. As Dr. Perl, Christine Lahti (one of our most underused and finest actresses) gives a wholly credible, sensitive portrayal: her character remains etched on our minds long after the film is finished. Also in this excellent cast are Richard Crenna, Bruce Davidson, and Beau Bridges among many others in small but pungent roles. Highly recommended.
  
  

• Christine Lathi Gives A Moving and Powerful Performance

  
  By A333RKKQLV7N9W on 2004-02-23
  This made-for-tv movie by Showtime is based on the autobiography of Dr. Gisella Perl, a Holocaust Survivor who lost her husband, her son, and along with her entire family when they were deported to Auschwitz from Hungary in 1944. Ms. Lahti give a powerful pand moving erformance portraying Dr. Perl who risked her life to secretly perform abortions on expectant mothers to save them from being sent to the gas chambers at Auschwitz only to have her actions questioned later on when she is attempting to gain citizenship and be able to practice medicine in America. Ms. Lahti turns in an outstanding performance and this is one movie not to be missed.
  
  
• A great, lesser-known holocaust movie
  By A1FJAWSS04MGAR on 2005-04-27
  This movie is definately among my most favorite holocaust based films, and I've seen quite a few. The movie continuously transitions between Dr. Perls childhood, her role in the holocaust, and the aftermath when she is a refugee. Dr. Perl has passed the medical tests with flying colors and has proved her leadership and talent as a doctor. However her license is being withheld because her morals are unknown. She worked side by side with nazi's and unknowingly sent women to their death. Dr. Perl secretly performed hundreds of abortions with her barehands. Jewish expectant mothers were the very first to be exterminated. By taking life away from unborn babies, there was hope for life for the mother as well as future babies. However, the hospital frowns that she took part in such evil, even though it was against her will.
  
  
• Excellent Movie!
  By A1O60Q7LBN4MQ on 2006-08-09
  Showtime made some amazing movies. This is one. Christine Lahti plays Dr. Gisella Perl a gynecologist who was interred in Auschwitz. It's the story of how she saved other women and herself but how women also died partly due to her (which haunted her greatly). She was used by the evil Dr. Joseph Mengele and she tried and sometimes succeed in saving woman from his horrid "experiments". Her story is told in flashbacks while told to three men who are part of the INS. She wanted to be an American citizen and a doctor again.
  
  I do not and can not understand how the German people allowed all the things that happened under Hitler's regime. I don't think they are any worse than any other people. If I did, I wouldn't have married my husband who is one fourth German-American and taken his German name. And America had "camps" for the Japanese-Americans. We didn't murder or torture them but they still had their freedom taken away. I think all people are capable of evil and it comes out in mob mentality.
  
  I wish that we could see ourselves as one people and equal to each other. Today in America, I see the hate toward new immigrants, especially Hispanics. My son may marry a Puerto Rican and I'm sickened by the idea that she may be mistreated by idiots who hate her for being a Latina.
  
  Will humanity ever evolve beyond such petty differences and allow each other to be who they are?
  
  This is an excellent movie and Christine Lahti gives an outstanding performance.
  
  
  
• Utterly absorbing!
  By A1POFVVXUZR3IQ on 2007-03-13
  I missed this excellent show when it was on Showtime, so I got it when it was released on DVD. The story is a true account of a Holocaust survivor, made unique by the fact that the survivor was no ordinary person, but a gynaecologist, Dr Gisella Perl, who loses her family to the gas chambers, and has to do what is necessary to survive amidst the worst conditions imaginable...by working alongside the infamous butcher doctor, Josef Mengele. The movie is told via flashbacks, as in the present day, Dr Perl is interviewed by a panel considering her application for US citizenship and allowing her to practise medicine in the US. Although I sympathised with her character [played brilliantly by Christine Lahti], there were moments where I questioned some of her choices as a doctor in Auschwitz. BUT, this movie does make you think...how far would you go in order to survive? Would one's moral compass remain intact in the face of such cruelty, evil & banality? The story is one that is definitely worth viewing, the scenes at the camp are really gut-wrenching, and horrific, and the acting is excellent, so is the cinematography, evoking the hopelessness of the time. Worth multiple viewings.
  
  
• Gripping, Powerful Story of a Doctor in Auschwitz
  By A3KNGA5WIECM5V on 2005-02-14
  This is the story of Dr. Gisella Perl and her struggle to survive Auschwitz and become an American citizen. Dr. Perl was born to a religious Jewish family in Sighet (the same town as Elie Wiesel) and struggled, against her father's wishes, to become a doctor. Although a doctor of reknown in her town, she was transported to Auschwitz along with all the other Jews in Sighet. There, she tried to save as many lives as she could. Dr. Perl also prevented women from being killed and experminted upon (and their children experimented upon) by Dr. Mengele. This sometimes required aborting the babies before Dr. Mengele could become aware that the women were pregnant. Although no movie can fully depict the horror of Auschwitz, this one pulls no puches.
  
  Dr. Perl manages to survive Auschwitz, but after arriving in America, must take menial jobs in hospitals. Her story is told through an inquisition by INS officials, who question what she did in Auschwitz. The suffering Dr. Perl endured, the things she saw, and the choices she had to make are extremely painful. It is impossible to judge her actions without walking in her footsteps. Who knows how any of us would act under the same circumstances?
  
  This is a remarkable story. Christine Lahti movingly and realistically portrays Dr. Perl. I agree with the reviewer who says that we don't see Ms. Lahti in enough films -- she is an incredible actress. This film is well beyond most made-for-TV movies. It is a must see.
  
  
• RIVETING
  By A31ULICPNL54SU on 2005-04-09
  This film is heart-wrenching. Powerful perfomances bring the horrors of Dr. Mengele's medical experimentation at Auschwitz to light. Extremely graphic, not for the faint-hearted. Dr. Gisella Perl's story is incredible. How does one ever recover?
  
  
• The cost of survival
  By AK61LQI92GTCH on 2006-04-02
  Intelligent, thought-provoking, and moving story of Gisella Perl, doctor, Holocaust survivor and author of the book "I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz."
  
  This made-for-television (Showtime) movie picks up Perl's story after the war. She has emigrated to New York - her family, Hungarian Jews, were murdered at Auschwitz - and desperately wants, needs, to begin practicing medicine again. The movie presents her as a gynecologist, a good one, as well as a strong and at times even vain woman. Life is never simple, though. First she must pass the medical boards, and then the immigration must give their approval for her to practice in this country. And the panel of immigration officials have some tough questions to ask before that appoval is granted.
  
  Christine Lahti brings a full palette to her complex character and is pretty much the whole show. The panel members (Beau Bridges, Bruce Davison and Richard Crenna in his last credited role) need to know if Perl collaborated with the German medical staff at Auschwitz, a staff headed by that arch-fiend, Joseph Mengele (Jonathan Cake.) And, pre-Roe v. Wade, they're curious about the roughly one thousand abortions she reportedly performed while at Auschwitz. It's the late forties, after all, and abortions were still illegal and almost universally reviled. These questions usher in flashbacks and, if not excuses, at least explanations for her actions. Women came to Auschwitz pregnant, or were raped by the guards. Pregnant women and women with infants were killed, and Perl made one of the many `choiceless choices' Lahti mentions in a short video interview on the dvd.
  
  I'm beginning to come to the conclusion that all the good stuff nowadays is produced by television. OUT OF THE ASHES is a Showtime production from 2003. It's not really another Holocaust movie, either. Rather it's about the cost of survival and the `choiceless choices' one has to make along the way.
  
  
  
  
  
• One Million Stars***************************************************************************************************************
  By A3UYDJLYVS6GQX on 2006-07-09
  Christine Lahti's acting as Dr. Perl is the finest acting I have witnessed in my life. Thanks to the uncanny acting ability of all the cast and flawless production and typescript, one tumbles into the cummulative anguished soul and stays speechless and awestruck throughout. This film so aptly corners every conceievable theme of humanity I am awestruck as to how it all was accomplished. Lahti's acting defies Hollywood skillsets - there is a power within her coiling and striking each nano second throughout.
  
  
• A Powerful Movie!
  By A2ICETGAS02JWD on 2004-07-23
  A touching and powerful movie based on the true story of a doctor's plight in the Auschwitz death camp. You can almost feel this woman's terror and despair as she and her family were herded to the Nazi death camps. Once there, the doctor had to witness innumerable atrocities that would haunt her forever. Only her will to survive, and her desire to help other women kept her alive. And yet, even though she had courageously made it through the nightmare and ultimately found her freedom in America, she had to go through yet another ordeal when a government panel all but accused her of wrongdoing at Auschwitz and tried to ban her from practicing medicine in the United States.
  
  This is a must see movie that will stay with you forever.
  
  
  
• The choiceless choices of a Jewish doctor in Auschwitz
  By A2NJO6YE954DBH on 2005-08-22
  I still remember the resolution of "The Man in the Glass Booth" as being the moment when the idea that those who survived the Nazi concentration camps could be assailed by massive guilt for coming out alive. Robert Shaw's play raised more issues than that, and there are certain dramatic twists and turns in that particular story, but the importance of guilt and what it can do to you came through. However, "The Man in the Glass Booth" is a work of fiction, and this 2003 Showtime original film is based on a true story.
  
  Out of the Ashes" addresses more directly the idea that surviving Auschwitz could involve guilt in the particular case of Gisella Perl (Christine Lahti), a Jewish-Hungarian doctor who did just that. She makes her way to America and wants to practice medicine again, but there are questions about what she did in the camps and to what degree she colluded with the Nazis. Not just the Nazis, but with Dr. Joseph Mengele (Jonathan Cake). When he discovered Perl was a doctor, he asked her to help him identify the pregnant women in the camp so that they could be taken to a special infirmary. Of course, this is a lie, which Perl learns almost immediately.
  
  Perl has to appear before three I.N.S. investigators. Herman Prentiss (Beau Bridges) is the most accusatory, Jake Smith (Richard Crenna) seems sympathetic, and Peter Schuman (Bruce Davison) seems troubled, so the trio provide a variety of responses to the story Perl has to tell. In telling her story, Perl goes back to not only her time in Auschwitz, but before the Nazis came to Hungary. As that story unfolds it becomes clear that what she did is not as important to her inquisitors, herself, or her audience, as why. I assume that anyone who watches "Out of the Ashes" will be familiar with the horrors of the Holocaust, but each story told in such settings always finds a way to evoke the horror anew and this one is no different.
  
  My only real problem with "Out of the Ashes" is not its historical resolution but rather its dramatic. There is a point where Perl comes to terms with her own actions, which is what allows her to go on and live her life. We understand how it provides her with a sense of peace, but how it translates into what the decision reached by the tribunal is left unstated. The fact that Mr. Prentiss delivers their verdict was not lost on me, but I found it hard to believe the words he speaks were written by him and I see him as the odd-man out on a split decision. So that leaves a gap in the dramatic structure of the story, which matters because in adapting Perl's book "I Was a Doctor in Auschwitz," Anne Meredith ("Bastard Out of Carolina") has chosen for Perl's story to be revealed in the course of that inquiry. Meredith won the Writers Guild of America award for Adapted Long Form teleplay, so it is not that this is a flawed script, but that I really wanted a better sense of the judgment being offered and I found what was provided inadequate to that task.
  
  Showtime's promotions for this movie keep asking the question, "What would you do?" But that is really a false issue, as is the specific way that Perl tried to help women in Auschwitz, which resonates in a polarized America in a completely different way. In interview clips Lahti talks about what Perl did as "choiceless choices," and I certainly endorse the idea that judging someone when you are incapable of standing in their shoes is a senseless intellectual game. You can say what you would do if you were in the position of Gisella Perl or the title character in "Sophie's Choice," but you are separated from such decisions by some quantum differences in time and place such musing are at least absurd if not insulting.
  
  Final Note: Among the brief special features on this DVD is a map marking the location of the Nazi death camps in Eastern Europe. The map makes a distinction between concentration camps, such as Buchenwald and Dachau, and the extermination camps such as Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is not a distinction in nomenclature that I have followed previously, and it is hampered by an inadequate understanding of which camps fall into which categories, but it strikes me as making a valid point.
  
  
• Abortionist going waaay back
  By AIA5PLISC0V8F on 2008-06-22
  Movie was okay, but to say she saved thousands of lives? C'mon, she actually killed thousands of lives. All those babies she murdered... I was expecting to feel sympathy after reading the reviews, but how could you. She was an abortionist: plain and simple. She was just as bad as Hitler himself; worse even, she was a Jew. We all try to tell others and outselves "we weren't there" or "he/she would have done the same." But really? To kill babies? She should be tried as a war criminal. She collaboreted with the enemy. During war, collaboratores get shot as traitors. But I guess abortionists and their de-humanizing views makes them sleep better at night. Okay movie, but sadistic central person.
  
  
• Powerful
  By A1G3RL4TFFN2WC on 2004-05-14
  This is a not-to-be-missed movie. Exceptionally moving and powerful. Lahti is extraordinarily wonderful in her portrayal of Dr. Perl. Ultimately, this is a movie about life, hope, atonement, and courage.
  
  
• Christine Lahti, as the doctor, gives a dazling performance.
  By A2CTPHKKU0S2QJ on 2006-01-24
  Shattering. Watch it and weep for America under the Bush administration.
  
  
• No Surprises - Just What You Would Expect
  By A11NR4AJK9TNQM on 2008-06-24
  This was an OK movie. Professionally done but as hard as it is to imagine there is nothing new here. This is a truly tragic story at every level but I just don't find it entertaining. I think it is intended to be a story of hope - if so it just doesn't work as I was only depressed by what I saw.
  
  
• holocaust remembered
  By A3N0HXTDRUBVEN on 2007-10-18
  In Memory Of The Holocaust
  Let All The World Never Forget
  
  In Germany one dark day
  Evil became, because of one man
  All the people had to salute
  With hand held high
  Every person who was in Hitler's life
  Wore his Nazi slogan with pride
  
  While, all the weak, sick and disabled
  Mostly Jews, who were also German born
  Were sent to concentration camps, because
  This man Hitler sought a perfect race
  And so began the Holocaust
  
  Jews died by the hundreds each day
  For Hitler wanted only blonde hair and blue eyes
  He wanted only strong men and women
  So many people had to hide
  In fear of their lives
  As the Secret Service hunted to find
  
  The French underground
  Helped some from being captured by the state
  Other countries close to Germany
  Assisted terrified people to escape
  
  I remember those brave people who saved lives
  But millions more still died
  The Nazi put numbers on their arms
  And set them to hard labour, with little food and drink
  Where they became sick or weak
  Then they were told to go the showers
  They did not know, this was the Nazi gas chambers
  Where they would die
  After death they were put in the ovens
  To hide from the world this genocide
  
  Let us remember the heroes of German occupation
  And though we may thank God it is over
  We must never let this happen again
  There must be peace on earth
  Please let the war we are in
  Never become another forgotten war
  And let no fanatical man
  Ever take our souls away
  In America, The USA.
  
  Linda Ann Henry
  Do you remember me
  The people's poet
  linda11231949@aol.com
  
  Let the memory never die of:
  the millions of good people mainly Jews,
  the people who hid them-at the cost of their own lives,
  the soldiers who were lost-in the name of freedom for all
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• out of the ashes
  By A1JL3KU9AUNEK4 on 2007-03-24
  A moving story, well told. Superb acting. Realistic and well produced. An invaluable adddition to any study of the holocaust
  
  
• Exceptional story telling
  By A3MV0YKWYGF5SR on 2007-12-18
  One of the most "moving", emotional movies I've seen since Schindler's List. The cinematography is breath taking, great directing and Christine Lahti has never been better. Some scenes are difficult to watch due to the cruel events of that time, but a viewing experience you won't soon forget.
  
  
• OUT OF THE ASHES
  By A2YP357XMI33OY on 2007-12-22
  
  
  MY HEART GOES OUT TO ANYONE WHO HAS THE SUFFER ANGUISH AND TO ENDURE THE SITUATION.
  
  THIS MOVIE WAS AN EYE OPENER.
  
  
• Educator
  By A3VUMTBTA5BTOR on 2008-06-28
  I have viewed this movie and it was well worth watching it. It is so real that I cried. I recommend this movie to anyone who is studying the Holocaust or is interested in the injustices of humanity. One can choose to do well in life for survival while others do not understand or will never understand why we made these choices in our lives. Truly an amazing movie!
  
  
• Out of the Ashes
  By A3TM9AX5AJHU3K on 2008-07-01
  Loved the movie. It's one of the great movies we all should own.We received it in just a few days after we placed the order. Amazon is a great place to order anything from.
  
  
• A double tragedy...
  By A3B9P1YLQICUKR on 2008-07-28
  "Out of the Ashes" is a gripping true story of a Jewish female obstetrician who survived the Holocaust, and saved the lives of hundreds of female prisoners, only to be savaged when she finally emigrated to the United States by both a bureaucratic system and latent anti-semitism among the commissioners who reviewed her application for citizenship to enable her to practice here. Difficult to watch at times due to content, despite the fact that it won an Oscar for cinematography, the truth is often tough to swallow. It is the story of a woman who became a doctor over parental objections, who aborted hundreds of women to save them from Nazi extermination, and who survived only to be savaged when she finally made it to the U.S.
  
  

• Holocaust
• The Grey Zone
• A Day in October
• The Devil's Arithmetic
• Conspiracy