With Spielberg's help, a 101-year-old Auschwitz survivor has become a mighty warrior against hate

SAINT-MAUR-DES-FOSSÉS, France (AP) — After surviving Auschwitz-Birkenau, Ginette Kolinka developed a stock answer to shut down questioners who'd ask about her experiences of the Nazi death camp and its horrors.

“'If I had a child, well, I would prefer to strangle them with my own hands than make them go through what I went through,'” she'd tell them.

“For me, that was an answer that said it all,” Kolinka says.

Now, at the tail end of a remarkably long and fruitful life, the feisty 101-year-old with an easy and generous smile has become a mighty warrior against antisemitism in France, seeing purpose in sharing her firsthand insight of murderous hatred and inhumanity.

So the lessons of the Holocaust aren't forgotten. So people who tune in to the countless interviews she gives cannot say that they didn’t know about the death camps and the extermination of 6 million European Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators. So school pupils who are thrilled to meet and listen to Kolinka inherit and embrace the duty of remembrance.

Kolinka credits Steven Spielberg for helping to precipitate her decision 30 years ago to start opening up about the mental and physical scars that she buried for decades, the survivor's guilt that tormented her, the eternal regret of goodbye kisses that she didn't get to give to her father, Léon, and 12-year-old brother, Gilbert, before Nazi guards sent to them to the gas chambers, and so many other cruelties.

After the 1993 release of “Schindler’s List,” Spielberg launched a foundation to collect testimonies from Holocaust survivors. When it contacted Kolinka, she was reticent, replying that talking to her would be a waste of time, she recounts in “Return to Birkenau,” her memoir.

But when its interviewer then sat down with her, in 1997, out the memories flowed, for nearly three hours. Tears, too. The foundation says it has since collected more than 60,000 testimonies and is still gathering more.

“For the first time, I found myself compelled to think about it again,” Kolinka says in her book, published in 2019.

In World War II, Nazi-occupied France deported 76,000 Jewish men, women and children, mostly to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Just 2,500 survived. It took France’s leadership 50 years to officially acknowledge the state’s involvement in the Holocaust, when then-President Jacques Chirac in 1995 described French complicity as an indelible stain on the nation.

Through her books, media appearances and school visits, Kolinka has become the most prominent remaining French survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Just a few dozen, perhaps fewer than 30, are still alive, according to the Paris-based Union of Auschwitz Deportees, a survivors' group.

Pupils hung on her every word when Kolinka dropped by the Marcelin Berthelot high school east of Paris recently to tell her story for the umpteenth time, with The Associated Press also present. Even the abbreviated version, squeezed into roughly 90 minutes, makes for tough listening — from her arrest in March 1944 to her return to France, skeletal and traumatized, after Nazi Germany's surrender in May 1945.

She described how she and other Jews were crammed aboard windowless animal-transport wagons in Paris and the violence and cruelty, with Nazi guards screaming orders and dogs barking, that greeted them at the other end three days later at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In her memoir, Kolinka says that the first German word she learned was “Schnell!” — meaning “Move it!”

The pupils listened in pin-drop silence as Kolinka explained that they were forced to strip naked and how that had been torture for the demure 19-year-old she was at the time.

“The Nazis' hatred of Jews was such that they hunted for every detail that could make us suffer, humiliate us,” she said.

Then, Kolinka rolled up her left sleeve so pupils could see the identification number — 78599 — that a camp orderly tattooed on her forearm.

“Some people’s numbers cover their entire arm,” she said. “But I have a nice little number.”

With time short and perhaps to spare their young imaginations, Kolinka didn't tell the teenagers that most of the 1,499 men, women and children transported with her to Auschwitz-Birkenau in convoy No. 71 from Paris were killed on arrival.

Kolinka was among a couple of hundred who were kept back from the gas chambers and crematoriums to be used instead as forced labor.

As a prisoner, Kolinka used to watch subsequent trains being unloaded, knowing that those aboard would soon be dead.

Focused on survival, she shut down her emotions.

“I became a robot,” she told the pupils.

After her talk, a group of them gathered around Kolinka to keep chatting and ask more questions, giving her rock-star treatment, not wanting the encounter to end.

Nour Benguella, 17, and Saratou Soumahoro, 19, were giddy with admiration. Simultaneously, they reached for the same word to describe Kolinka: “Extraordinary."

“An amazing woman. It’s wonderful to have her here in front of us. This strength of testimony, her mental fortitude," Benguella said.

“Keeping this history alive is the only thing that will permit us to not make the same mistakes.”

Ginette Kolinka, a 101-year-old survivor of Auschwitz, arrives to meet pupils in a Paris-region high school in Saint-Maur-des-Fosses, outside Paris, France, March 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Ginette Kolinka, a 101-year-old survivor of Auschwitz, smiles after a meeting with pupils in a Paris-region high school in Saint-Maur-des-Fosses, outside Paris, France, March 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Ginette Kolinka, a 101-year-old survivor of Auschwitz, during a meeting with pupils in a Paris-region high school in Saint-Maur-des-Fosses, outside Paris, France, March 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Ginette Kolinka, a 101-year-old survivor of Auschwitz, makes a phone call after she met some pupils in a Paris-region high school in Saint-Maur-des-Fosses, outside Paris, France, March 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Ginette Kolinka, a 101-year-old survivor of Auschwitz, during a meeting with pupils in a Paris-region high school in Saint-Maur-des-Fosses, outside Paris, France, March 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

Ginette Kolinka, a 101-year-old survivor of Auschwitz, smiles after a meeting with pupils in a Paris-region high school in Saint-Maur-des-Fosses, outside Paris, France, March 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A likely strike by the United States hit the central Iranian city of Isfahan early Tuesday, sending a massive fireball into the sky, and Tehran struck a fully loaded Kuwaiti oil tanker in the Persian Gulf.

The attacks were testament to the intensity of the monthlong war the U.S. and Israel launched against Iran, which has maintained its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, closing off the vital waterway for global energy shipments, sending oil prices skyrocketing and roiling world markets.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been insisting there is progress in diplomatic talks toward a ceasefire, shared video of the attack on Isfahan, with fiery explosions lighting up the night sky. Isfahan is home to one of three sites earlier attacked by the U.S. military in June and some of Iran’s highly enriched uranium is likely stored or buried or there.

Meanwhile, Israel said another four soldiers had been killed in its invasion of Lebanon, as were two more United Nations peacekeepers, prompting the U.N. Security Council to schedule an emergency session for later Tuesday.

Spot prices of Brent crude, the international standard, hovered around $107 a barrel in early trading, up more than 45% since the war started Feb. 28 when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran.

Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway leading our of Persian Gulf through which a fifth of the world’s oil is transported during peacetime, has driven up global oil prices, as have its attacks on Gulf regional energy infrastructure.

In response to growing Gulf Arab anger, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi insisted Tuesday that Tehran is only targeting U.S. forces. Several states have been encouraging Washington to continue the war until Iran's military capabilities are destroyed.

“Our operations are aimed at enemy aggressors who have no respect for Arabs or Iranians, nor can provide any security," Araghchi wrote on X. "High time to eject U.S. forces.”

Despite these words, attacks on civilian targets continued as an Iranian drone hit a Kuwaiti oil tanker in Dubai waters, sparking a blaze that was later put out, the Dubai Media Office said.

Four people in Dubai were also wounded when debris from an intercepted drone fell into a residential area.

Air raid sirens sounded in Bahrain, while Saudi Arabia's Defense Ministry said it had intercepted three ballistic missiles launched toward Riyadh, and falling debris from a drone intercepted southeast of the capital caused minor damage to six homes.

Sirens were also heard in Jerusalem and loud explosions were heard not long after Israel's military warned of an incoming missile barrage from Iran.

Israel and the U.S. launched a new wave of strikes on Iran, hitting Tehran in the early morning hours.

The video shared by Trump appeared to show a massive attack on Isfahan, where NASA fire-tracking satellites suggest the explosions happened near Mount Soffeh, an area believed to have military positions. Iran has not yet confirmed the attack.

A satellite image taken just before the 12-day war in June between Iran and Israel suggests Tehran transferred a truckload of highly enriched uranium to its nuclear facility at Isfahan.

The image from an Airbus Defense and Space Pléiades Neo satellite shows a truck loaded with 18 blue containers going into a tunnel at the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center about two weeks before the U.S. bombed the site.

Analysts determined that the truck likely carried most or all of Iran's stockpile of uranium enriched up to 60% purity. That’s a short, technical step to weapons-grade levels of 90%.

Trump has said this week that “great progress is being made” in talks with Iran to end military operations. But he said if a deal is not reached “shortly,” and if the Strait of Hormuz is not immediately reopened, the U.S. would broaden its offensive by “completely obliterating” power plants, oil wells, Kharg Island and possibly even desalination plants.

The U.S. has also sent a contingent of 2,500 Marines to the region, and another is on its way, while ordering 1,000 paratroopers to the theatre as well.

Trump has openly talked about the possibility of trying to seize Kharg Island, Iran's main oil export hub, and Iran has accused the U.S. of using diplomacy to stall until more troops can be brought in.

The U.S. already has targeted military positions on Kharg. Iran has threatened to launch its own ground invasion of Gulf Arab countries and to mine the Persian Gulf if U.S. troops set foot on its territory.

Twice during Trump’s second term, the U.S. has attacked Iran during high-level diplomatic talks, including with the Feb. 28 strikes that started the current war.

The U.N. Security Council planned to convene an emergency session Tuesday after officials said three peacekeepers in southern Lebanon had been killed in less than 24 hours.

The U.N. peacekeeping mission in the region where Israel is battling the Iran-backed Hezbollah did not say who was responsible for the deaths.

In Iran, authorities say more than 1,900 people have been killed, while 19 have been reported dead in Israel.

Two dozen people have been killed in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank. In Lebanon, officials said more than 1,200 people have been killed, and more than 1 million have been displaced.

Ten Israeli soldiers have died in Lebanon, including the four announced Tuesday, while 13 U.S. service members have been killed in the war.

Rising reported from Bangkok. Sally Abou AlJoud in Beirut contributed to this report.

A firefighter battles flames at a damaged workshop after an alert of incoming missiles in Petah Tikva, Israel, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)

Members of the Basij paramilitary force stand at a checkpoint in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, March 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

Monsignor Simon Khoury inspects a damaged house following an Iranian missile strike in Shefaram, Israel, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Israeli authorities inspect a damaged house following an Iranian missile strike in Haifa, Israel, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

A portrait of Iran's late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, left, is seen, as smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)

Portraits of Hezbollah's late leaders Hassan Nasrallah, right, and his cousin, Hashem Safieddine, are seen, as smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Monday, March 30, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)