Escape from Sobibor (1987)

Back in 1987, this excellent British-made film aired on American television. Fortunately, if you want to see it, you can now download it absolutely free from archive.org--and I strongly recommend you do.This film is the true story of a death camp called Sobibor and the inmates who eventually mounted the largest escape during WWII. Of the 600 prisoners, over 300 escaped and many of these folks managed to survive the war. This is awfully astounding and a nice contrast to all the depressing holocaust films, as in this case they fight back--killing many of their SS tormentors in the process of escaping.The film deserves very high marks in just about every way. The acting is superb, the script tense and rousing and the story sticks close to the facts--something not all historical films do. Well worth seeing and, not surprisingly, sad and tragic at times, so have some Kleenex handy and don't let young kids watch this alone.

I have seen all manner of films about the Nazi's fanatical extermination of Jews, be these films stories, fact or fiction, this part of world history, happened to other people.So, when I read reviews of such films which include the words, very good, exciting, wonderful, fantastic, I feel quite sick, because in my opinion the reviewer has given little thought to their words usage.Nazi Germany was a hell hole for 6 million Jews, and others, and Escape from Sobibor was no exception.The Nazis were brutal thugs, and what makes matters worse is, that they were also cultured, they had been brainwashed into believing what they were doing was right, and they didn't care how they did what they did.I have to give a rating for a true story, my rating with be five because the world must never forget.But I give a poor 1 star, to reviewers of films portraying this time in world history, as exciting, superb, etc, because these words are without doubt out of place on this, shall we say, issue.

For some reason, I seem to shy away from these public domain pictures because their ubiquitous presence in film compilations and dollar store racks seem to suggest that they aren't very good. Then you come across one like "Escape From Sobibor" and you have to re-evaluate your prejudices. This was an amazing film, telling the true story of a Polish Nazi death camp and the men and women who led their people to freedom in the face of insurmountable evil."The Great Escape" comes to mind as a film along the same lines. However the difference with that story was in the fact that the Great Escape prisoners were primarily U.S. and Royal Air Force fliers, an 'elite' group so to speak, who even if the Nazis hated, at least had earned a measure of respect for their aviation abilities. In 'Sobibor', the prisoners were virtually leaderless, with only Leon Feldhendler (Alan Alda) showing an ability to plan and organize at the outset. It's almost an hour into the picture before Sergeant Sascha Pechersky (Rutger Hauer) makes his appearance, a captured Russian soldier who's also a Jew. Their collaboration initially must overcome a certain level of distrust, but once that trust is earned, the movie moves into it's all or nothing finality.There are just too many heartbreaking scenes in this film, but to truly understand the nature of evil and how freedom's enemies mean to do us harm, films like this are a must see. I say this within the context of present day reality, and the ever growing threat of would-be nuclear powers like Iran and North Korea. Ideological enemies turned extremist leave no room for rational behavior; how else do you explain the fanatical inhumanity that leads to the point blank murder of a woman and her baby? Or the concept of 'thirteen or fifty', that scene where the failed escape prisoners must select a colleague to die along with them.This is not an easy picture to watch, even when the prisoners begin their bid for freedom with the murder of the first German officer. You know you want to cheer for them, but the mission is so grim and the horror of their quest is so suffocating, that you can only watch in astonishment. One's focus is dictated by Sascha's only possible response to Leo's uncertainty about his people's willingness to kill for their freedom - "They will manage because they have to".

I consider myself reasonably well-versed in the history of Nazi Germany. I've read a lot about it, studied a lot about it, but somehow until finding this movie I had never heard of this death camp called Sobibor. I even rechecked several sources that I have at hand and found no reference to Sobibor, so the narration introducing the movie was clearly true - this was a little known death camp compared to say Treblinka or Auschwitz. That's unfortunate, because the story told in this movie makes it clear that Sobibor deserves to be better known.The movie stars Alan Arkin as Leon, a Jewish inmate of the camp, and Rutger Hauer as Sasha, a Russian Jewish soldier who is imprisoned in the camp. Leon and Sasha are among a few hundred Jews who the Nazis find useful, and so they stay alive as slave labour , but Leon and Sasha also become the leaders of a planned mass escape.The story is fascinating from a historical perspective and very moving from an emotional perspective, and should rank - in my opinion - pretty close to "Schindler's List" as one of the great Holocaust movies. You can't possibly watch this and not be deeply touched. Especially moving was actually a post-war note narrated at the end of the movie that tells us about the ironic (in a horrible sense) ultimate fate of Leon.The only thing I thought weakened this a tiny bit was that the prisoners seemed in surprisingly good shape under the circumstances. I realize that the Nazis thought these were useful Jews, and therefore perhaps treated them better than others, but I still thought the conditions were better than I would have imagined them to be.Still, a magnificent story that everyone should become familiar with. 9/10