No offense, but that is very foolish. These people have suffered incredibly. Not just Helen, though certainly her suffering is the most direct and horrific, but also Monika. Monika does not need to be asked "did your father go to Hell?" I'm sorry, but that is quite absurd. My god, this person has Amon Goeth as a father. A monster that is directly responsible for the suffering, torture and murder of thousands of people. Monika didn't even KNOW her father, he simply provided the sperm that resulted in her conception. Why do we need to ask Monika if she would send her father to Hell forever? What does that accomplish?
This is a story about healing. It is about the survivors trying to make some sense of the tragedy, but the plain truth is - and Helen herself points this out - there is NO sense to it. None. It was predicated on the whims of a madman and carried out by sick, twisted people that were put in place BECAUSE they were sick and twisted and were willing to do these monstrous things.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, that is why man has no business wielding absolute power. No man can ministrate that kind of power without being corrupted, save Christ. I think when someone is in that kind of situation, where they are being commanded to do heinous, unconscionable things, that evil overtakes them, it consumes them. When a person utterly and completely profanes their own conscience, then God turns them over to their own debase minds. A person without the spirit of God holding them accountable is a frightening and incalculably dangerous person.
That is the reality of what Helen lived with, and Monika's legacy: a man without a conscience, with no regard for human life whatsoever and both of those women - in their own way - must come to terms with that and live with that reality until the day they die. Do they need someone asking them "did you inherit your father's evil?" No, they don't. Besides, if you would have listened more carefully you would have heard Monika comment - twice in fact - worrying if she had inherited that evil and saying she didn't. She says to Helen in Płaszów, "My mother said 'you are just like him and you will die like him', so I am always worrying maybe I will be like him? But I am not now". Helen says, "you have a choice" and Monika says, "YES, I know."
The film can't do everything. The documentary is not about Poland, it is about the daughter of a perpetrator and about a victim of this perpetrator both trying to heal and make some sense of what happened. Both know that no sense can be made of it, but there can be healing, there can be awareness and education for those alive today that will be building our future, so that this will never happen again.
If you want to see a film about survivors, there are many out there. Spielberg started the Shoah Foundation, which was set up to collect the stories of survivors. I think they have almost 50,000 testimonies now, and it is being expanded to include other atrocities besides the Holocaust, though the Holocaust remains it's primary objective. Spielberg also produced a documentary called "Survivors of the Holocaust", which I believe is only available on VHS, you can get it at Amazon. I encourage you to check that out. There are many good documentaries on this topic, however this one is not about all survivors, this is about Helena (called "Susanna" by Goeth) and Amon's daughter, Monika. It is excellent and I admire the courage and openness of both Helen and Monika. I'm very happy that no one asked "harder questions", that would have been very inappropriate and in incredibly poor taste. These people have been through enough, they don't need some insensitive person asking them ridiculous questions like "would you send Goeth to Hell?"
"...nothing is left of me, each time I see her..." - Catullus
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