Oliwia Dabrowska was about 3 years old when she became an indelible part of cinema history in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning classic Schindler’s List. As the little girl in the red coat who walks untouched through the Kraków ghetto while its inhabitants are being “liquidated” by German troops, not only was she the only color in the otherwise black-and-white film, she also symbolized much of the film’s more complicated character Dance between hope and hopelessness, violence and compassion, guilt and innocence.
Schindler’s List, of course, was the story of a Nazi Party member who helped thousands of Jews escape death, a situation not unlike recent news of Ukrainian civilians being murdered en masse by Russian troops. And like the hero of this film, Dabrowska, who is now 32 and lives in Poland, is taking action to help civilians trying to flee the war.
On March 9, the former actress shared an artist rendering of her iconic scene in the film, in which her fur color changed from red to blue to represent the blue and yellow flag of Ukraine, which she also shared as part of the post.
“She was always the symbol of hope,” wrote Dabrowska. “Let her be again.”
In the days that followed, Dabrowska went to the Polish-Ukrainian border to help refugees there. She took to social media to ask for help on her behalf.
“We need your help here on the Polish-Ukrainian border,” she wrote. “Every small donation helps: We need donations in kind and money, you can also help personally. The situation is dramatic; I’m also a volunteer here, on the border, and I’ve seen it with my own eyes…”
These sights included the aftermath of the bombing by the Russian military.
“Today Russia bombed Yavoriv,” she wrote. “Only 20 kilometers from Poland. So close! I’m scared, but that just motivates me even more to help refugees.”
She met a Ukrainian mother with her two children who were fleeing the war and had to be transported to a distant town near the German border.
“Usually we transport refugees in our area, but this time we couldn’t just say no. They really wanted to see their sister. These kids… my god I can’t hold back my tears,” she wrote.
“I can’t tell you everything I saw there because I have no right [sic] Words in my head… No one who has never seen this cannot imagine this nightmare in the eyes of these people.”
On Wednesday, Dabrowska gave her first update in a while, posting a photo of herself and saying she and her mother are making progress in obtaining first aid kits for Ukrainian soldiers, setting up a donation mechanism and “actively helping the refugees.” , physical or online.”
For the film’s 25th anniversary in 2018, Spielberg outlined how he saw the scene as a call to action against such atrocities, a call Dabrowska is now heeding.
He told NBC News:
In the book, Oscar Schindler – the book by Thomas Keneally – couldn’t get over the fact that a little girl was walking during the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto – everyone was put on trucks or shot in the street. A little girl in a red coat was ignored by the SS. The SS took everyone but somehow ignored this 6-year-old kid walking down the street in the brightest color. And yet she was not seen. And to me that meant that people – Roosevelt and Eisenhower and probably Stalin and Churchill – knew about the Holocaust. It was a well-kept secret, and [they] did nothing to stop it… To me it was like a bright red flag that anyone watching could have seen.
You can see the scene below.