Escape from Sobibor
This article needs additional citations for verification. (November 2011) |
Escape from Sobibor | |
---|---|
Original release | |
Network | ITV |
Release | 12 April 1987 10 May 1987 (UK/ITV) | (US/CBS)
Escape from Sobibor is a
The script, by
Background
On 14 October 1943, members of the Sobibor camp's underground resistance succeeded in covertly killing 11 German SS-Totenkopfverbände officers and a number of Sonderdienst Ukrainian and Volksdeutsche guards. Of the 600 inmates in the camp, roughly 300 escaped, although all but 50–70 were later re-captured and killed.[9] After the escape, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler ordered the death camp closed. It was dismantled, bulldozed under the earth, and planted over with trees to cover it up.[10]
Plot
The film begins with a new trainload of Polish Jews arriving for processing at
The leader of the prisoners,
The Camp Kommandant leaves for several days, taking Wagner with him, which proves an advantage as the most sadistic of the SS officers will be absent. On 14 October 1943, the plan goes into action. One by one, SS officers and NCOs are lured into traps set by groups of prisoners armed with knives and clubs. Eleven Germans are killed, but one officer, Karl Frenzel, unwittingly evades his killers, discovers the corpse of one of his colleagues, and raises the alarm. By now, the prisoners have assembled on the parade ground and, realising the plan has been discovered, Pechersky and Feldhendler urge the prisoners to revolt and flee the camp. Most of the 600 prisoners stampede for the perimeter fences, some of the Jews using captured rifles to shoot their way through the Ukrainian guards. Other guards open fire with machine guns from observation towers, cutting many of the fleeing prisoners down, and other would-be escapees are killed on the minefield surrounding the camp. But over 300 Jews reach the forest and escape.
As the survivors flee deeper into the forest, famed newscaster Howard K. Smith narrates the fates that befell some of the survivors on whose accounts the film was based. Of the 300 prisoners who escaped, only approximately 50 survived to see the end of the war in 1945. Pechersky makes it back to Soviet lines and rejoins the Red Army, surviving the war, and Feldhendler lives to see the end of the war but is killed shortly afterwards in a clash with anti-semitic Poles. Sergeant Wagner escapes to Brazil, where he is found stabbed to death in 1980. After the uprising, which was the largest escape from a prison camp of any kind in Europe during World War II, Sobibor was bulldozed to the ground, and trees were planted on the site to remove any sign of its existence.
Cast
In credits order:
- Leon Feldhendler
- Joanna Pacuła as Luka (Gertrude Poppert-Schonborn)
- Rutger Hauer as Lieutenant Aleksandr 'Sasha' Pechersky
- SS-Hauptscharführer Gustav Wagner
- Jack Shepherd as Itzhak Lichtman
- Emil Wolk as Samuel Freiberg
- Simon Gregor as Stanisław 'Shlomo' Szmajzner
- KapoPorchek
- Jason Norman as Thomas 'Toivi' Blatt
- Robert Gwilym as Chaim Engel
- Eli Nathenson as Moses Szmajzner
- Kurt Raab as SS-Oberscharführer Karl Frenzel
- Eric Caspar as SS-Hauptsturmführer Franz Reichleitner
- Hugo Bower as SS-Oberscharführer Rudolf Beckmann
- Klaus Grünberg as SS-Oberscharführer Erich Bauer
- Wolfgang Bathke as SS-Unterscharführer Hurst
- Henning Gissel as SS-Scharführer Josef Fallaster
- Henry Stolow as SS-Untersturmführer Johann Niemann
- Ullrich Hauptas SS-Scharführer Josef Wolf
- Patti Love as Eda Fiszer Lichtman
- Judith Sharp as Bajle Sobol
- Ellis van Maarseveen as Selma Wijnberg
- David Miller as Tailor Mundek
- Jack Chissick as Hershel Zuckerman
- Ned Vukovic as Morris
- Sara Sugarman as Naomi
- Peter Jonfield as Kapo Sturm
- Dijana Kržanić as Esther Terner
- Irfan Mensur as Kalimali
- Zoran Stojiljković as Boris
- Svetolik Nikačević as Old Man
- Miša Janketićas Oberkapo Berliner
- Dejan Čavić as Kapo Spitz
- Zlatan Fazlagić as Weiss
- Predrag Milinković as Kapo Jacob
- Svetislav Goncić as Gardener
- Gojko Baletić as Guard (uncredited)
- Milan Erak as SS Corporal (uncredited)
- Rastislav Jović as Shlomo's Father (uncredited)
- Erol Kadić as Gardener
- Miroljub Lešo as Prisoner (uncredited)
- Bozidar Pavićević-Longa as SS-Sturmmann Ivan Klatt (uncredited)
- Howard K. Smith as Narrator (American version) (uncredited)
- Dragomir Stanojević as Guard (uncredited)
- Predrag Todorović as Guard (uncredited)
- Jelena Žigon as Shlomo's Mother (uncredited)
See also
- List of Holocaust films
- List of survivors of Sobibor
- Sobibor (2018), a film about the same topic starring Konstantin Khabensky
- The Grey Zone (2001), movie about the uprising in Auschwitz-Birkenau
Footnotes
- ^ Running to 169 minutes with PAL speed-up.
References
- ^ "Escape from Sobibor (1987)". IMDB. Retrieved 22 April 2012.
- ISBN 978-0252064791.
- ^ "Stanislaw Szmajzner - Sobibor Interviews".
- ^ "Best Television Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television". GoldenGlobes.com. Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Archived from the original on 25 January 2017. Retrieved 3 September 2017. (The film tied with Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story.)
- ^ "Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Limited Series or Motion Picture Made for Television". GoldenGlobes.com. Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Archived from the original on 25 January 2017. Retrieved 3 September 2017.
- ^ "Esther Raab, 92, Holocaust survivor". philly-archives.
- ^ "Esther Raab - Sobibor Interviews". sobiborinterviews.nl. Archived from the original on 31 August 2021. Retrieved 27 April 2015.
- ^ "Remembering Esther Raab Tenner, a Holocaust Survivor". 29 June 2015.
- ISBN 978-1-84520-419-8.
- ^ "History & Overview of Sobibor".
External links
- Escape from Sobibor at IMDb
- Escape from Sobibor at AllMovie
- Escape from Sobibor at the TCM Movie Database