AUGUST 11 • 2022 | 59

ARTS&LIFE
FILM REVIEW

I

n an effort to survive the Holocaust 
at any cost, thousands of Eastern 
European Jews passed as Orthodox 
Christian to avoid being killed by the 
Nazis. Many of those Jews were chil-
dren and teenagers who could easily 
blend in with their surroundings or with 
Orthodox Christian families willing to 
claim them as their own until the war was 
over.
The true story of 13-year-old Sara 
Góralnik, which comes to life in the 2019 
Holocaust film My Name Is Sara, captures 
the stark and unthinkable leaps Jewish 
youth undertook to protect their true 
identities during the heart of the Second 
World War. The film, which has a run-
time of just under two hours, premiered 
at the Maple Theater on Aug. 5.
Sara (Zuzanna Surowy) is a young 
Polish Jew from Korets, a city now in 
northwest Ukraine, that was home to 
some 4,600 Jews during the interwar peri-
od. Only 500 Jews from Korets survived 
the Holocaust. Sara, who married a fellow 
survivor from the city and passed away in 
2018 at age 88, was one of the lucky ones. 
After the war, they immigrated to the 
United States, settling in Metro Detroit 
and raising three children and four 
grandchildren.
From May to September 1942, the 
small Polish city was devastated by the 
German invasion. The film opens with 
Sara and her older brother Moishe on 
the run, as they flee the Korets ghetto the 
night before the Germans plan to liqui-

date it. Leaving their family and every-
thing they had known behind, they move 
with the shadows in the woods. Yet unlike 
Sara, who has light hair and eyes, Moishe 
has obviously Jewish features.
As her brother sleeps, Sara makes the 
most difficult decision of her life. She 
leaves Moishe in the forest, knowing 
they’d both be at risk with his Jewish 
features, and runs deep into the woods 
where she survives for several days with 
almost no food.
Sara eventually reaches the Ukrainian 
countryside, where she finds a farmer 
at work and begs for a job. She takes on 
the name of her Christian classmate, 
Manya Romanchuk, and claims to be 
an Orthodox Christian girl who ran 
away from her troubled home life. 
Sara is taken to a farmer Pavlo (Eryk 
Lubos) and his wife Nadya (Michalina 
Olszanska), who agree to let Sara work 
for them as a nanny in exchange for 
food and shelter.
Yet, Sara is tested in ways unimag-
inable for young Jews. She’s asked to 
cross herself, eat pork and assist Pavlo 
and Nadya’s children with Christian 
prayers. While the family begins to 
steadily accept Sara as one of their own, 
Sara knows she isn’t safe. The Ukrainian 
countryside is occupied by Nazis, who 
consistently pose a threat to her life.
However, in addition to the Nazi threat 
overhead, Sara finds antisemitism all 
around her, a feeling deeply ingrained in 
the Ukrainian countryside. Few scenes 

leave out the suspicion that Sara is con-
stantly encountering, showing just how 
dangerous her disguise truly was — at any 
second, her cover could be blown and she 
would be killed.
As Sara learns the ways of the small 
village, she develops complicated rela-
tionships with Pavlo and Nadya. On top 
of protecting her own identity, she must 
protect the dark secrets of her employers’ 
marriage in order to keep her job and 
stay alive.
My Name Is Sara is a slow burn that 
tells the story of the Holocaust like it is, 
leaving no stone unturned as how it por-
trayed the devastation of the Nazi occu-
pation and rampant antisemitism that 

plagued Eastern Europe. The film is made 
in association with the Shoah Foundation 
and is executive produced by Sara’s eldest 
son, Mickey Shapiro, offering a personal 
and poignant edge that only those who 
knew Sara best could give. 

My Name Is Sara is a 
harrowing war tale of 
balancing survival with 
secrets.

Telling It 
Like It Is

ASHLEY ZLATOPOLSKY 
CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A still from 
My Name Is Sara

RATING: HHHHI

