Escape From Sobibor
From the novel penned by Richard Raske, comes a true story about the unbreakable spirit of man's will to survive and courage in the face of death. The men and women caged in Sobibor, a Nazi concentration camp infamous for slaughtering a quarter million of its captives, won't quietly await their inevitable executions. Together they unite and attempt a sort of mutiny to break free of their prison and escape death at the hands of Hitler's disciples. One man, Leon Feldhendler (Alan Arkin), has the courage to rally his fellow detainees to make a mass escape from the death camp. Leon acquires the help of an imprisoned Russian soldier, Alexander Percherski (Rutger Hauer), who gives him the tactical know-how to plan the breakout. In a heartrending struggle for life, six hundred Jews storm the camp's gates, but only three hundred make it to freedom.
Member Reviews
A Sobering And Fascinating Story - revsdd
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.AWSOME!!! WOW - Special_K
This is a must see movie! It is 100% great movie watching. This movie is better then Schindlers List! During WW2 in a death camp in Poland we see what happened through the eyes of the people. It has on 2 Golden Globes. I saw this movie when I was a teenager and it stuck in my mind ~thanks to Zip.ca I found it again! Its a very sad part of history but the ones who were killed and the ones who survived should never be forgotten.
Member Reviews
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A Sobering And Fascinating Story - revsdd
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 ...AWSOME!!! WOW - Special_K
This is a must see movie! It is 100% great movie watching. This movie is better then Schindlers List! During WW2 in a death camp in Poland we see what happened through the eyes of the people. It has on 2 Golden Globes. I saw this movie when I was a teenager ...