Rene and I Study Guide

Please click Rene and I to view the new Study Guide for the film Rene and I . Learn more about the Mengele twins Irene Hizme nd Rene Slotkin René and I is a 75-minute documentary film that tells the story of young twins René and Irene, who spent more than a year in Auschwitz under the notorious Dr. Josef Mengele. Of the 3,000 twins experimented on by Mengele and other Nazi doctors, only 160 survived. While this documentary is the story of the Nazi racial state and the Holocaust, it is also a story of love and courage, of the complexity of the human psyche and of the resilience of the human spirit. Irene and René’s story provides unique insight into the childhood experiences during the Third Reich. Their experiences show the impact on young people and their families.

"It is really our triumph. We overcame and we have raised families. Irene Hizme We have become productive people in society and so - we won."

Written by Shelly Shapiro with special thanks to graphic designer, Heidi Florussen and to Diane Freer, Lorraine Tiven, and Mary

"We are constant reminders of governments who did not act, of nations who closed their borders in the face of people fleeing death; we are constant reminders of doctors who participated and planned in the murder of Jews, Gypsies and the disabled; we are constant reminders of thousands who betrayed their neighbors for pennies; we are constant reminders of hundreds of train conductors who took their unsuspecting victims in sealed cattle cars to the death camps without giving it a thought. We are constant reminders of a highly civilized society that turned itself into an evil one and that the Holocaust is a paradigm of human indifference. Truth is on our side. We must never be silent in the face of hatred and bigotry and we must remember that the road to Auschwitz is paved in silence."