The documentary film ‘Once My Mother” is produced by Australian filmmaker Sophia Turkiewicz which depicts her Polish-background mother Helen’s struggle of survival as a refugee during World War II and the process of reconciling with her mother after her abandonment in an orphanage at a young age. In some sense, it is a story of loss and abandonment due to all of the extraordinary challenges experienced by Helen. However, because of these challenges, Helen was able to demonstrate and reveal her incredible human strength on her way of survival. Furthermore, the love between Helen and her daughter was a main part and shown in almost every move of the film, dominating over the loss and abandonment. As a consequence, the film predominantly portrays love and human strength.…show more content… The greatest loss Helen encountered was the death of her parents. She was orphaned at the age of six and this posed a great strike on her life. Since then she slaved in her uncle’s farm, set her on a way of no love and care and there was no opportunity for her to go to school and become educated like other ordinary children. After working in her uncle’s farm for two year, she faced the most significant abandonment in her life: being turned out onto the street by her uncle. She was at such a young age, only nine and this abandonment was absolutely a turning point of her life and determined everything happened afterwards. Started from this point, she totally lost her childhood and became homeless. She didn’t have anyone to teach and guide her how to live her life and how to survive during such harsh time in the war period. Every day was about survival, she had to seek for shelter and food on the