After seeing the film “The Secret of Kells,” San Francisco State University student Collin Searls knew he wanted to create an animated movie in a similar vein for his thesis project. He didn’t have to look too far for inspiration on the subject.

Searls decided to create a documentary-style, partially animated film about his great-grandmother, Rose Kurek, who had survived the Holocaust. The film went on to win 2nd Place Student Animation in the 2016 ASIFA Spring Festival and help Searls earn his bachelor of arts degree.

In the five-minute film "In Memory," Searls gives a voice over describing his journey in researching his great-grandmother. He then narrates his great-grandmother’s story over animated sequences.

The challenge of creating the film was that, though Searls was Kurek’s direct descendant, he knew little about her. Kurek had passed away in the 1970s, and no one in Searls’ family knew her full story.

“I’d heard my great-grandmother was in the Holocaust and that she met my great-grandfather afterwards, but no one in my immediate family really knew what happened to her, which is why I started researching,” he said.

To find out more, Searls turned to USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive. Though Kurek had passed away before the Institute began collecting testimonies, her brothers Jack and Sol Kurek, and her sister-in-law Sylvia Kurek, had all recorded testimonies. Searls was also able to speak with Sylvia Kurek on the phone.

“[Sylvia Kurek] told me a general story of what she knew had happened to Rose, and the testimonies from her and the brothers helped clear up some of it,” Searls said.

Still, his research was not without surprises. Searls had originally assumed that Kurek had gone to a concentration camp with her parents, but learned during the creation of the film that her parents were actually taken before she was. And that wasn’t the only unexpected discovery Searls made.

‘I can’t think of what surprised me more, that she was taken to so many camps, that she was actually taken on a death march, or that she randomly found Sylvia in New York (they had grown up together before the Holocaust and found each other randomly afterward,” Searls said.

Now that Searls has graduated, he hopes to get a job in the film industry. He plans on entering the film into some more festivals, including the 2017 Jewish Film Festival in San Francisco. Searls is also considering making an accompanying short film focusing on his great-grandfather.