Irene Zisblatt (née Zegelstein; born 28 December 1929) is a Carpathian Mountains-born American Holocaust survivor.
Irene Zegelstein was born on 28 December 1929, in the resort town of Polyana, in what is now Zakarpattia Oblast in Ukraine, in a house with no electricity.
[citation needed] On the second night of Passover, 8 April 1944, she and her family were sent to the ghetto of Munkács, which, according to Zisblatt, consisted of a former brick factory surrounded by a fence.
However, not wanting to accept the soldiers' request to put valuables inside bags, Zisblatt swallowed the diamonds, which her mother had sewn into her dress.
Zisblatt was one of five Hungarian Holocaust survivors whose story was featured in the 1998 Academy Award-winning documentary movie, The Last Days, directed by James Moll and produced by Steven Spielberg.
Experimental psychologist George Mastroianni, in his Times of Israel Blogs piece discussing The Last Days and a 2010 blog piece by independent scholar Joachim Neander, stated "Neander analyzed Zisblatt's testimony and raised concerns about the factual accuracy of some of the elements of her story.