THE LITTLE GIRL WEARING RED - The Uncredited Cast Member of Schindler's List

Now Oliwia Dabrowska, who was just three years old when she was chosen for the role, has revealed in an interview that appearing in the film left her scarred for years.

In the film, Oliwa’s character is the catalysis for German industrialist Oskar Schindler’s decision to help Jews escape the Holocaust.

Schindler, who saved over 1,200 lives by employing Jews to work in his factories, first sees Oliwia’s character walking against the flow of human traffic during the liquidation of the Cracow Ghetto.

The next time he sees her, however, she is lying lifeless on a cart overflowing with the dead, forcing home the horror of the Holocaust to Schindler. Oliwia, who was three when the film was produced, broke a promise to Steven Spielberg to only watch it when she was 18.

Instead, she watched it at the age of 11, and was left “horrified” by the brutal scenes, which included Ralph Fiennes’ SS Officer Amon Goeth shooting women and children at random from his window. She told The Times that she did not understand much of the film, but was "sure that I didn’t want to watch [it] ever again in my life".

Oliwia also revealed that she had been "ashamed" of being in the film, and kept her role in it a secret. Having “really regretted” watching the film at such a young age, she finally tried again when she turned 18.

This time, she realized that Spielberg had been right. “I had been part of something I could be proud of,” she said. “I had to grow up into the film.”

Now 23, she has continued acting as a hobby but hopes to pursue a career in publishing instead. She is in the third year of a library science degree and works part-time in a Cracow bookshop.

from "The Telegraph," 2013