“Among the GDR's strongest entries at international festivals, The Fiancée is a...story of intense authenticity and conviction. Based on the experiences of Eva Lippold, as recorded in her trilogy The House with the Heavy Doors, it chronicles the 10-year imprisonment of a Communist activist from the mid-30s through the end of the war and her strength of will and passion to survive. A rare and powerful film situated where the personal and historical intersect with utmost urgency. Grand Prize winner at the 1981 Karlovy Vary Festival.” Tony Safford, AFI
The Fiancée is also featured in the Museum of Modern Art's New Directors series for 1984. In her book Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust (1983), Annette Insdorf calls The Fiancée “one of the most inspiring visions of solidarity and integrity ever put on film” and counts it among those few films which “succeed best in illuminating the Holocaust: they keep it visible and render it meaningful.”