Swimming in Auschwitz

Just when it seems like the Holocaust has been exposed on screen from every possible angle, yet another pivotal film comes along that demands attention. The latest entry, writer-director Jon Kean's riveting, if all-too-brief, "Swimming in Auschwitz" documents the plights of six women who each ended up in the notorious Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp during World War II and the shocking inhumanities they endured.
Most compelling, the stories are told by the survivors themselves -- a sextet of remarkable, European-born octogenarians who have been Los Angeles residents for 50-odd years -- with clarity, grace and dollops of dark humor. Accompanied by an impressive array of sometimes ghastly photos and archival footage, along with images of the remains of Auschwitz, the women's nightmarish recollections are disturbingly vivid yet never descend into self-pity or bitterness. What emerges, instead, is a tale of resourcefulness and resilience, as the often-overlooked female perspective on the "Shoah" gets its due.
Da The Los Angeles Times, 1 maggio 2008