88 minutes / Color
French / English subtitles
Release: 2011
Copyright: 2009
In AS A YOUNG GIRL OF THIRTEEN, Holocaust survivor Simone Lagrange recounts in detail her life before the war, her deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and her role in bringing Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie to justice.
AS A YOUNG GIRL OF 13 is an engaging portrait of a woman determined to never let her spirit be broken. As a schoolgirl, she threw an inkwell at a teacher who singled out the Jews in her classroom. At Auschwitz she squeezed ink out of the identification number tattooed on her arm. In an anteroom to the gas chambers, potentially moments from death, she refused to stand for a the camp commandant, so infuriating him that he slapped her and had her taken out of his sight—thereby saving her life.
In vivid detail, Lagrange describes the horror of the cattle cars transporting Jews to the death camp, and the "horror within horror" of life at Auschwitz, where her mother was killed for smuggling cabbage leaves to prisoners with scurvy. Her father would die after the camp had been abandoned, shot in the head moments after Simone recognized him in a line of prisoners.
Simone Lagrange's story echoes that of many Holocaust survivors. But what truly makes this documentary outstanding is her perceptiveness and the sharpness of her memory. Years after the war, Lagrange was one of the Holocaust survivors who recognized Klaus Barbie. AS A YOUNG GIRL OF THIRTEEN includes footage of her testimony at his trial, and a television appearance in which she says she has no doubt he is the same man who tortured her. Today, Lagrange says Barbie's sentence of life in prison was irrelevant—the true value of the trial was in telling the story of what happened to her and others during the Holocaust.
It is a story that she tells eloquently in this remarkable film.
"Highly recommended...Technically, the film is outstanding, with excellent cinematography, smooth editing, fine audio, and excellent use of archival clips and images. Without doubt, this is the well-documented testimony of a courageous woman-truly a "woman of valor." Surviving the horrors of the Final Solution and confronting her tormentor, she achieves justice not only for herself, but for those who did not survive." —Educational Media Reviews Online
"One settles in to watch...wondering what new or unfamiliar dimensions of terror can possibly be learned, what "lessons" can be gleaned?...Lagrange's story disperses these questions in feelings of sorrow, admiration, and inspiration." —Cineaste
"Although many Holocaust documentaries tend to be the same, Lagrange's personal abuse at the hands of two of the Holocaust's worst perpetrators gives this film a unique touch." —Canadian Jewish News
Select Accolades
Why did a prominent group of Holocaust survivors and philosophers oppose the death sentence for Adolf Eichmann?
Florence Jammot | 2015 | 60 minutes | Color | English | Closed Captioned
Marcel Ophuls' Academy Award winning examination of the Nazi officer Klaus Barbie, the infamous "Butcher of Lyon," weaves together 40 years of footage and interviews.
Marcel Ophuls | 2010 | 267 minutes | Color | French; English | English subtitles | Closed Captioned
The noted historian's lifelong quest to describe the extermination of the European Jews.
Frank Diamand | 2014 | 65 minutes | Color | English
