With Spielberg's help, a 101-year-old Auschwitz survivor becomes warrior against hate | Euronews

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By&nbsp Nina Borowski &nbsp&&nbsp Christina Molle Published on 31/03/2026 - 16:42 GMT+2 • Updated 18:19 Share Comments Share Facebook Twitter Flipboard Send Reddit Linkedin Messenger Telegram VK Bluesky Threads Whatsapp Copy/paste the article video embed link below: Copied People who watch the countless interviews Ginette Kolinka gives cannot say that they didn’t know about the extermination of 6 million European Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators. Ginette Kolinka arrives to meet pupils in a Paris-region high school in Saint-Maur-des-Fosses, 21 March, 2026 AP Photo 'Schindler's List' a turning point Kolinka credits Steven Spielberg for helping to precipitate her decision 30 years ago to start opening up about the mental and physical scars that she buried for decades. An aerial view of the Birkenau Extermination Camp at Oświęcim, 25 August, 1944 AP Photo Held back from the gas chambers Pupils hung on her every word when Kolinka dropped by the Marcelin Berthelot high school east of Paris recently to tell her story for the umpteenth time. Ginette Kolinka makes a phone call after she met some pupils in a Paris-region high school in Saint-Maur-des-Fosses, 21 March, 2026 AP Photo "I became a robot," she told the pupils.

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Christina Molle
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People who watch the countless interviews Ginette Kolinka gives cannot say that they didn’t know about the extermination of 6 million European Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators.
After surviving Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ginette Kolinka developed a stock answer to shut down questioners who would ask about her experiences of the Nazi death camp and its horrors.
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"If I had a child, well, I would prefer to strangle them with my own hands than make them go through what I went through," she would tell them.
"For me, that was an answer that said it all."
Now, the 101-year-old with an easy and generous smile has become a warrior against antisemitism in France, seeing purpose in sharing her first-hand insight of murderous hatred and inhumanity so the lessons of the Holocaust are not forgotten.
People who tune in to the countless interviews Kolinka gives cannot say that they did not know about the death camps and the extermination of 6 million European Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators.
Ginette Kolinka arrives to meet pupils in a Paris-region high school in Saint-Maur-des-Fosses, 21 March, 2026
AP Photo
'Schindler's List' a turning point
Kolinka credits Steven Spielberg for helping to precipitate her decision 30 years ago to start opening up about the mental and physical scars that she buried for decades.
She decided to talk about the survivor's guilt that tormented her, the eternal regret of goodbye kisses that she did not get to give to her father, Léon, and 12-year-old brother, Gilbert, before Nazi guards sent them to the gas chambers, and many other cruelties.
After the 1993 release of "Schindler's List," Spielberg launched a foundation to collect testimonies from Holocaust survivors. When it contacted Kolinka, she was reticent, replying that talking to her would be a waste of time, she recounts in "Return to Birkenau," her memoir.
A photo which shows the alleged original Schindler's List and documents of Oskar Schindler during an exhibition of the "Stuttgarter Zeitung" of documents, 15 October, 1999
Michael Latz/AP1999
But when the interviewer then sat down with her in 1997, the memories began to flow for three hours. The foundation says it has since collected more than 60,000 testimonies and is still gathering more.
"For the first time, I found myself compelled to think about it again," Kolinka says in her book, published in 2019.
In World War II, Nazi-occupied France deported 76,000 Jewish men, women and children, mostly to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Just 2,500 survived.
It took France’s leadership 50 years to officially acknowledge the state's involvement in the Holocaust, when then-President Jacques Chirac in 1995 described French complicity as an indelible stain on the nation.
Through her books, media appearances and school visits, Kolinka has become the most prominent remaining French survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Just a few dozen, perhaps fewer than 30, are still alive, according to the Paris-based Union of Auschwitz Deportees, a survivors' group.
An aerial view of the Birkenau Extermination Camp at Oświęcim, 25 August, 1944
AP Photo
Held back from the gas chambers
Pupils hung on her every word when Kolinka dropped by the Marcelin Berthelot high school east of Paris recently to tell her story for the umpteenth time.
Even the abbreviated version, squeezed into roughly 90 minutes, makes for tough listening, from her arrest in March 1944 to her return to France, skeletal and traumatised, after Nazi Germany’s surrender in May 1945.
She described how she and other Jews were crammed aboard windowless animal-transport wagons in Paris and the violence and cruelty, with Nazi guards screaming orders and dogs barking, that greeted them at the other end three days later at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
In her memoir, Kolinka says that the first German word she learned was “Schnell!” meaning “Move it!”
A group of Jews is escorted from the Warsaw Ghetto by German soldiers, 19 April, 1943
AP Photo
The pupils listened in silence as Kolinka explained that they were forced to strip naked and how that had been torture for the demure 19-year-old she was at the time.
"The Nazis' hatred of Jews was such that they hunted for every detail that could make us suffer, humiliate us," she said.
Then, Kolinka rolled up her left sleeve so pupils could see the identification number, 78599, that a camp orderly tattooed on her forearm.
"Some people's numbers cover their entire arm," she said. "But I have a nice little number."
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Rock-star treatment
With time short and perha

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## Expert Analysis

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### Implications
- Even the abbreviated version, squeezed into roughly 90 minutes, makes for tough listening, from her arrest in March 1944 to her return to France, skeletal and traumatised, after Nazi Germany’s surrender in May 1945.
- In her memoir, Kolinka says that the first German word she learned was “Schnell!” meaning “Move it!” A group of Jews is escorted from the Warsaw Ghetto by German soldiers, 19 April, 1943 AP Photo The pupils listened in silence as Kolinka explained that they were forced to strip naked and how that had been torture for the demure 19-year-old she was at the time. "The Nazis' hatred of Jews was such that they hunted for every detail that could make us suffer, humiliate us," she said.
- Then, Kolinka rolled up her left sleeve so pupils could see the identification number, 78599, that a camp orderly tattooed on her forearm. "Some people's numbers cover their entire arm," she said. "But I have a nice little number." Related Rise of antisemitism: These are the EU countries reporting the most hostilities 'Antisemitism has become a political tool,' since Hamas attack, Europe's leading rabbi says Rock-star treatment With time short and perhaps to spare their young imaginations, Kolinka did not tell the teenagers that most of the 1,499 men, women and children transported with her to Auschwitz-Birkenau in convoy No. 71 from Paris were killed on arrival.
- This strength of testimony, her mental fortitude," Benguella said. "Keeping this history alive is the only thing that will permit us to not make the same mistakes." Go to accessibility shortcuts Share Comments Read more Moving on from Holocaust remembrance an affront, Yad Vashem chair tells Euronews World pauses as it observes annual International Holocaust Remembrance Day Berlin honours Levi family with memorial 'stumbling stone' plaques Auschwitz Nazis Jews Deportation Memory Holocaust

### Expert Commentary
This article covers kolinka, auschwitz, birkenau topics. Readability: Flesch-Kincaid grade 0.0. Word count: 1054.