SS guards accused of letting 300 Jewish women and children perish in a burning church during the death march near Kraków, Poland. Michael is horrified to see that Hanna is one of the defendants. Ilana Mather and her mother Rose give the key evidence. Ilana testifies that Hanna had women from the camp read to her in the evenings. Rose testifies that when the church caught fire from a bombing raid, as the guards locked the doors, all but her and Ilana died. Hanna, unlike her co-defendants, admits that Auschwitz was an extermination camp and that she and the others chose 10 women for each month's Selektion. When questioned on the church fire, no one explained why they had not unlocked the doors. The guards' report said they did not know about it until morning. Hanna admitted it was a lie, they had not opened the doors so the prisoners could not escape. Hanna's co-defendants then all lie that she was in charge, and that she wrote the report. Hanna denies this, insisting that all the guards present agreed on the contents of the report. The lead judge asks for a handwriting sample, ashamed, she avoids this test by testifying she wrote the report. Watching the trial from the public gallery, Michael realizes Hanna's secret: she is illiterate, and so she could not have read or written it. When Michael tells his law professor, he tells him his moral obligation is to inform the court. The professor is frustrated with him for not having spoken to Hanna, so he tries to visit her in prison, but cannot face her and leaves her waiting. She gets a life sentence for 300 murder cases, while the other defendants are sentenced to four years and three months each for aiding and abetting. Michael weeps from the gallery. Years later, Michael puts the books he had read to Hanna on tape and regularly sends them to her in prison. She borrows the same books from the prison library, teaching herself to read and write using Michael's voice. She writes to Michael, gradually with more and more literacy, but he never responds. In 1988, a prison official contacts Michael, requesting his help with Hanna's transition into society following her release. Initially refusing, he later visits to say he has found her a place and a job. Pleased to see him, she tries to reconnect, but