Polanski was born in Paris, France but his family moved back to Poland in 1937. His parents were agnostics. Because the family was Jewish, they were persecuted by the Nazis in Poland and forced to live in a ghetto. Polanski's mother died at Auschwitz. He later went to film school at Lodz and graduated in 1959. Polanski won many awards for his short movies and went on to make full-length movies in the United Kingdom and the United States.