The Girl in the Red Coat: A Memoir

By Roma Ligocka and Iris Von Finckenstein

Book Overview

When she first saw Schindler's List - to whose premiere in Germany she was invited - Roma Ligocka suddenly realized she was witnessing a part of her own life. She felt instinctively that the little girl in the red coat - the only spot of color in the film - was her. When she had lived in the Krakow ghetto during the Second World War she had worn a strawberry-red coat given to her by her grandmother. Unlike the girl in Spielbeg's film, however, Roma survived the war. Startled by this eerie conjunction of art and reality, Ligocka determind to write the story of her own life, to find out what had become of the little girl, and to measure who she now was. From a harrowing childhood under the Nazis, described with a simplicity and innocence that lends it even greater power, through the trials of living in Communist Poland, to a career in the theater and film (an artistic struggle paralleling that of her cousin, Roman Polanski), Ligocka traces her struggle for self-defiition and happiness. The Girl in the Red Coat is a courageous and moving story of survival and triumph.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312287941
• ISBN13: 9780312287948
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.2" x 1.1" x 4.8"

Customer Reviews

New perspective about a child living through the holocaust

I recently returned from a trip to Warsaw, Poland. At a holocaust memorial there were quotes from this book and so it piqued my interest. The book is beautifully written and you can feel the pain and frustration of the author. I highly recommend this book.

I read it all in one sitting

A very moving book. I've read many books about the Holocaust. However, I don't think I previously read one that was written by someone who was so young during the war and that focused so much on the author's adult life. Even though intellectually one knows that war scars a soul forever, living the aftereffects through a single individual's perspective is emotionally stunning. Highly recommended.

recommended

one of the best books I have ever read, the one that will stick to my mind forever;I must admit I don't read a lot (a "no time" excuse...) but I just could not put it down...