“I had heard of it and came to reading it after I was asked to play the part. As strange as it might sound, I felt it was in the wind that Heather Morris’s book and I were meant to come together. “

“I read texts by Eli Wiesel, Viktor Frankl. There are so many important and valuable books. There were many videos of testimony by former prisoners of Auschwitz. There are some video interviews of Lali online... I watched everything I could get my hands on. I met a wonderfully spirited woman - not unlike Lali and Gita - named Celine Karp Biniaz, a “Schindler’s List” survivor, who was at a friend’s gathering to share her experiences with younger generations. There is also a beautiful short documentary by Alan Resnais called “Night and Fog,” which is a must-see.”

“I admired her for her willingness to immerse herself in the darkness of Auschwitz in order to pass on the horrible story of the victims in her beautiful and important book.”

“I can’t say it was a challenge. I am honoured to hopefully bring to light through our dramatization of Lali’s story the horror of the Holocaust and keep this history relevant as there are fewer Holocaust survivor’s alive to tell their own stories.”

“I can’t say which is which. In this particular instance, it was tough reimagining the experiences and traumas of a victim of Auschwitz. My duty as an artist was to portray as best as my talent would allow me to keep Lali’s and Gita’s story alive.”

“The truth is in one’s research of a story like this, it’s overwhelming and it doesn’t let go of you. Why do you think it’s important to keep telling stories like Lali and Gita’s? In Auschwitz, they would have a band to play beautiful music to greet the arrivals of new prisoners…often children, women – even pregnant women, and men as they disembarked their cattle cars to their final destination: Auschwitz. Beautiful music to serenade them as they were led to the gas chambers, to their deaths. The horror. Lali and Gita are one story. These two people managed to survive out of six million Jews who were murdered. They had to carry all they’d seen, they had to make choices no one should be forced into. The circumstances were inhumane, unfathomable to us now. It’s a horror movie, but it really happened.

Lali and Gita’s love for each other, miraculously led to their survival. Yes they were lucky, but they had to sacrifice things too. They had to live with those demons they encountered on their way to their survival for the rest of their lives. In that respect, no one survived Auschwitz.”