Remember the little girl in the red coat in Schindler’s List? This is what she looks like now
Oliwia Dabrowska made movie history at the age of three in Spielberg's Oscar-winning film
SHE was the star of the most iconic shot in Schindler’s List – providing the only flash of colour in a harrowing black and white sequence.
At just three years old Oliwia Dabrowska made movie history as the girl in the red coat spotted by Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) as Jews are herded out of the Kracow ghetto.
He later sees the little girl on a cart piled with bodies and it is at that moment he decides to create the ‘list’ that would save 1,200 Jews from the Holocaust.
In the initial scene the Polish toddler was supposed to slide under a bed to hide but refused, despite attempts to bribe her with sweets, because she was scared there would be spiders.
The film won director Steven Spielberg his first directing Oscar, as well as the Best Picture gong, in
But Oliwia - now 27 – has since claimed she was “ashamed” of the movie when she was growing up and was angry with her parents when they revealed her role in it.
Oliwia, herself from Krakow, promised Speilberg she wouldn’t watch the movie before she was 18.
But she was left “confused” after breaking the promise and watching it when she was 11.
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In an interview in 2013 she told The Times: “I was ashamed of being in the movie and really angry with my mother and father when they told anyone about my part.
“I kept it secret for a long, long time, though at high school people got to know on the internet. People said: ‘It must be so important to you, you must know so much about the Holocaust.’ I was frustrated by it all.”
She now admits she was too young to watch the film and was confused by the “horrible” scenes such as SS officer Amon Goeth (played by Ralph Fiennes) taking pot shots at workers from his balcony.
She said: “It was too horrible. I could not understand much, but I was sure that I didn’t want to watch ever again in my life.”
However she revealed she finally realised she could be proud of the movie after watching again at the age of 18.
She added: “Spielberg was right: I had to grow up into the film.”
Although she went on to star in a few more productions as a child, Oliwia chose not to make an adult career of acting.
Instead she went to university to study library science and went into publishing.
