Out of the Ashes

Starring:Christine Lahti, Beau Bridges, Richard Crenna, Bruce Davison, Jonathan Cake, Jolyon Baker, Jessica Beitchman, Oliver Cotton, Michelle Fine, Zoie Palmer, Maria Ricossa, Ingrid Veninger, Emma Wellbelove, Nina Young, Vytautas Rumsas, Inga Tuminiene, Adrija Cepaite-Palsauskiene, Inga Maskarina, Nola Augustson, Alan Jordan
Director: Joseph Sargent
Studio: Showtime Ent.
Product Type: DVD

Description

In Out of the Ashes, one woman is forced to choose between two horrifying acts of evil, and ultimately finds the courage to make the right choice. Based on actual events that occurred during World War II that chronicles the life of Dr. Gisella Perl, a woman who lost her entire family and was forced to start life over in America.

Customer Reviews:

out of the ashes.......2007-03-24

A moving story, well told. Superb acting. Realistic and well produced. An invaluable adddition to any study of the holocaust

Utterly absorbing!.......2007-03-13

I missed this excellent show when it was on Showtime, so I got it when it was released on DVD. The story is a true account of a Holocaust survivor, made unique by the fact that the survivor was no ordinary person, but a gynaecologist, Dr Gisella Perl, who loses her family to the gas chambers, and has to do what is necessary to survive amidst the worst conditions imaginable...by working alongside the infamous butcher doctor, Josef Mengele. The movie is told via flashbacks, as in the present day, Dr Perl is interviewed by a panel considering her application for US citizenship and allowing her to practise medicine in the US. Although I sympathised with her character [played brilliantly by Christine Lahti], there were moments where I questioned some of her choices as a doctor in Auschwitz. BUT, this movie does make you think...how far would you go in order to survive? Would one's moral compass remain intact in the face of such cruelty, evil & banality? The story is one that is definitely worth viewing, the scenes at the camp are really gut-wrenching, and horrific, and the acting is excellent, so is the cinematography, evoking the hopelessness of the time. Worth multiple viewings.

Absolutely spellbinding and unforgettable.......2006-10-23

This film, based on the memoirs of Dr. Gisella Perl, is an incredibly powerful, moving, soul-searing, and unforgettable experience. Some people feel that there are too many books and movies about the Shoah, or that after awhile they all start to seem the same because the tale of horror is all-too familiar, but this film is moving proof that that's not the case at all. Every person's story was different and unique in some way. How often have we got something from the perspective of a survivor who was a doctor, and a female doctor no less, at a time when men largely dominated the medical field? Additionally, this story is told in the present day, with flashbacks inserted every so often, instead of told in a linear format or just starting in the present and then having the bulk of the movie be one long flashback before reverting back to the present.

Dr. Perl became the first female doctor, and the first female Jewish doctor at that, in her native village of Sighet in Hungary. Even though her father initially disapproved, ever since she announced her plans as a young girl, she proved to him that she could be an observant Jew, a good doctor, a wife, and a mother. Becoming a doctor didn't cancel out her faith or a more traditional female role, as her family had feared. She was well-liked and trusted by her patients, and was doing very well for herself and for her family. In addition to being an inspiration for having survived what she did, she was also living proof that women can have both a career and a family, instead of just one or the other.

In the present day (a few years after the war), Dr. Perl is being examined for American citizenship. Though she passed all of her medical boards to be allowed to practise medicine in the United States, the question remains of her character and if she collaborated with the Nazis. There's an ocean of misunderstanding between her and her three interrogators, men who were living comfortable lives while she and her family were being treated like sub-humans, while she lost her entire family and had to do the unthinkable to try to save her own life. People who were in the camps often had to do things that many in the outside world would consider immoral, uncivilised, or unthinkable, but one must understand that this was another planet, with its own set of rules and morals. No one should judge anyone else for having done something to preserve one's own life. It's not as though these things were done willingly or voluntarily. "Dr." Mengele seemed to have a great deal of liking and respect for Dr. Perl, and made her work in the excuse of an infirmary at Auschwitz, even once assisting with a Gypsy patient who was pregnant with her second set of twins, a woman who was later murdered after giving birth and taken to be dissected. She was also once called upon to give the infamous sadistic Irma Grese an abortion. However, Dr. Perl did far, far more good than harm, often risking her life to save her patients, doing things that she would have been shot for had she been discovered doing, such as hiding a sick woman during selections in the infirmary and using her and the other doctors' blood as the pretended blood sample of a woman who had typhus. And since her specialty was in gynecology and obstetrics, she gave about a thousand women abortions, performed without any tools no less. She knew that this would save these women's lives, and that if they survived, they could go on to bear another child someday, a child who would be born in freedom. Her goal, her driving force for surviving, was to continue helping to bring life into the world, keeping these Jewish women alive so they would keep their people alive and produce children who would continue to propagate their people, replenishing their ranks after how many people the Nazis slaughtered, a million and a half of whom were just children. It is this message that she is trying to get across to the men deciding her fate as an American citizen and as a doctor.

I'd highly recommend this film, both for its moving and gut-wrenching story and for its unique perspective and structure, quite different from what one usually expects from a film about the Shoah. Christine Lahti as Dr. Perl gives an absolutely brilliant performance, and everything is brought to life so vividly that one can almost feel as though one is right there in that moment, place, and time. I was even moved to tears a few times, something that rarely happens when I watch a film. It's the kind of thing that stays with one for a long time afterward.

Excellent Movie!.......2006-08-10

Showtime made some amazing movies. This is one. Christine Lahti plays Dr. Gisella Perl a gynecologist who was interred in Auschwitz. It's the story of how she saved other women and herself but how women also died partly due to her (which haunted her greatly). She was used by the evil Dr. Joseph Mengele and she tried and sometimes succeed in saving woman from his horrid "experiments". Her story is told in flashbacks while told to three men who are part of the INS. She wanted to be an American citizen and a doctor again.

I do not and can not understand how the German people allowed all the things that happened under Hitler's regime. I don't think they are any worse than any other people. If I did, I wouldn't have married my husband who is one fourth German-American and taken his German name. And America had "camps" for the Japanese-Americans. We didn't murder or torture them but they still had their freedom taken away. I think all people are capable of evil and it comes out in mob mentality.

I wish that we could see ourselves as one people and equal to each other. Today in America, I see the hate toward new immigrants, especially Hispanics. My son may marry a Puerto Rican and I'm sickened by the idea that she may be mistreated by idiots who hate her for being a Latina.

Will humanity ever evolve beyond such petty differences and allow each other to be who they are?

This is an excellent movie and Christine Lahti gives an outstanding performance.

One Million Stars***************************************************************************************************************.......2006-07-09

Christine Lahti's acting as Dr. Perl is the finest acting I have witnessed in my life. Thanks to the uncanny acting ability of all the cast and flawless production and typescript, one tumbles into the cummulative anguished soul and stays speechless and awestruck throughout. This film so aptly corners every conceievable theme of humanity I am awestruck as to how it all was accomplished. Lahti's acting defies Hollywood skillsets - there is a power within her coiling and striking each nano second throughout.

Average customer rating:

Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes
Starring: François Chau , Stan Egi , John Fujioka , Shizuko Hoshi , and Lenny Imamura
Director: Peter Werner
Manufacturer: Direct Source Label
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Charlie Rose with Jerry Yang; Patrick Cockburn & Andrew Cockburn (March 1, 1999)

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Charlie Rose with Jerry Yang; Patrick Cockburn & Andrew Cockburn (March 1, 1999)

ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Description

Yahoo! founder Jerry Yang discusses basketball, founding a leading online company, business models for e-commerce, venture capitalism, branding, globalization, and the future of the internet. Then, brothers and journalists Patrick Cockburn and Andrew Cockburn talk about their book, Out of the Ashes, their extensive study of Saddam Hussein, his potential to re-arm, and U.S. strategies to intercede in various Middle East scenarios.

Holocaust / War Three Movie Set (The Grey Zone; Varian's War; Out Of the Ashes) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Netherlands ]

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Holocaust / War Three Movie Set (The Grey Zone; Varian's War; Out Of the Ashes) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - Netherlands ]
Director: Tim Blake Nelson , and Lionel Chetwynd
Manufacturer: Bridge Entertainment
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B000GWLI2Q

Product Description

Netherlands released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: it WILL NOT play on standard US DVD player. You need multi-region PAL/NTSC DVD player to view it in USA/Canada. LANGUAGES: English (Do;by Digital 2.0), SYNOPSIS: The true story of Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, a Hungarian Jew chosen by Josef Mengele to be the head pathologist at Auschwitz. Nyiszli was one of Auschwitz's Sonderkommandos - Special Squads of Jewish prisoners placed by the Nazis in the excruciating moral dilemma of helping to exterminate fellow Jews in exchange for a few more months of life. Together, the Sonderkommandos struggled to organize the only armed revolt that would ever take place at Auschwitz. As the rebellion is about to commence, a group from the unit discovers a 14-year-old girl who has miraculously survived a gassing. A catalyst for their desperate attempt at personal redemption, the men become obsessed with saving this one child, even if doing so endangers the uprising which could save thousands. To what terrible lengths are we willing to go to save our own lives, and what in turn would we sacrifice to save the lives of others? SPECIAL FEATURES: 3-DVD Set, Interactive Menu,

Out of the Ashes: The Story of McColl Center for Visual Art

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Out of the Ashes: The Story of McColl Center for Visual Art
Starring: Judy McKie , Suzanne Fetscher , and Hugh McColl
Director: Stuart Grasberg
Manufacturer: WTVI
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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Release Date: 2003-11-19

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