The first American film to deal with the subject of the Holocaust from the point of view of a survivor.

Stanley Kubrick, Karel Reisz and Franco Zeffirelli all turned down the opportunity to direct. Kubrick didn't find it exciting, Zeffirelli was keen to break into movie directing from his stage background but felt that the material was too dark for him, and Reisz found it too close to home, having lost both his parents in the Holocaust.