Dr. Susan Spatz was a young Jewish girl when she was deported to Birkenau. Decades later, at the age of 96, her memory of what she witnessed inside one of history's most infamous killing centers is vivid, precise, and utterly shattering. Surviving Birkenau captures her testimony with support from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, a record of lived experience that cannot be replicated, only witnessed. As the generation of survivors passes, films like this one become the memory that refuses to be erased.

Why This Film Matters: The last Holocaust survivors are dying. Within a generation, there will be no one left who can say "I was there," and the forces of denial are counting on that silence. Surviving Birkenau is an act of preservation in the deepest sense: not just of one woman's story, but of a historical truth that the world has a moral obligation to protect. At a moment when antisemitism is surging, when genocide denial circulates freely online, and when political leaders flirt with the same dehumanizing language that made the Holocaust possible, Dr. Spatz's testimony is not a history lesson. It's a warning.