My favourite movie
Starring Kisten Dunst, The Devil’s Arithmetic is from 1999.
Hannah is a 16-year-old Jewish girl living in America, who is not interested at all in her heritage.
When she goes to a Passover feast and is nominated to open the door for Elijah, she walks into Poland in 1941.
She’s been ill, they tell her, which is why she’s confused.
The Nazis come to the village and the Jews are taken to a concentration camp.
Hannah looks out for her cousin, Rivka, and takes her place in the gas chamber.
When she is affected by the gas, she loses consciousness and then wakes up back in America.
Her family are relieved as they think she drank too much wine and passed out.
Then there’s a real, emotional twist, when she calls her favourite aunt, Eva, by the name Rivka.
She is shocked because that was something only she knew.
The American Hannah was named after the Polish Hannah who saved her life and Eva was Rivka.
A brilliant film, it’s been my favourite since I first watched it.
It also shares the honour with The Wizard Of Oz, which ironically is the story that Hannah tells those in the concentration camp to keep their sprits high.
Apart from the time travel aspect, the rest of the movie is historically correct, from the inhumane behaviour of the SS, the rounding up of Jewish people and the camps themselves.
Movie pages here.