Leon feldhendler escape from sobibor movie

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But `Escape From Sobibor' portraits Jews not only as passive victims going (or staying) in the slaughterhouse like a lambs, but also as a very brave people, fighting for survival. Leon Feldhendler [Alan Arkin] emerges as a measured, careful leader among the prisoners, recognizing that the system’s cruel utilitarian logic will eventually seal the fate of all who remain.

It is not known what education Leon Feldhendler received, or what exactly he did before World War II. In May 1935, he married Toba Wajnberg, and in October of the same year his first son, Chaim, was born.

When war broke out, in 1940 Leon Feldhendler headed the Jewish Council (Judenrat) in Żółkiewka, which was established by the Germans.

The rest of the family, including his sisters, brother, wife and children, were led to the gas chamber and murdered.

It is not known exactly what Feldhendler’s own daily life was like. I start a quiet conversation with Leon. It also had the most successful prisoner escape in World War II on October 14, 1943.This German death camp in Sobibor, Poland, killed 250,000 Jewish people.

I have to confess that I am tired of corny movies like `The Pianist', which only shows disgrace and misery of some Jewish persons in the Second World War. We, viewers, are aware of the massacre of Jews in the WWII, but I note that this type of movie is becoming more brutal and explicit. Just for reference, another excellent movie about this theme is Jon Avnet's `Uprising'.

Bookmark the permalink. A handful of prisoners with trades are spared to help run things—sorting the victims’ belongings, repairing shoes, recycling clothing, and melting precious metals into jewellery for the SS—while the rest are moved to a harsher part of the camp where a constant pillar of smoke marks the crematorium. If you enjoy THE GREAT ESCAPE (1963), I promise you will enjoy this film.

Is it because the world society in 2004 can support watching such brutalities? The movie gets a breathtaking and exciting getaway with a sensitive score by George Delerue . I have seen Schindler's List and it didn't touch me anywhere near as deeply as Escape from Sobibor.

leon feldhendler escape from sobibor movie

Some 35.000 Dutch Jews , originally assigned to Auschwitz were sent to Sobibór . And how simply fitting a denouement on the end credits the result of the police investigation, give that policeman a medal. It’s an important film and one of the greatest films that Rutger Hauer ever worked on. Victims were brought to the camp in unventilated transports , and all but a handful were gassed after arrival , the gas chambers could accommodate hundred prisoners at one time , most of their corpses were burned in open pits .

But that's people for you, the great variety that is the spice of life. Of the approximately six hundred prisoners who attempted to escape, around three hundred succeeded with somewhere between 50 and 60 surviving to see the end of the war.

The plot of ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR revolves around Leon Feldhendler (Alan Arkin), the leader of the Jewish prisoners at Sobibor, who eventually comes to realize that they are being held in nothing more than a death camp.