Escape From Sobibor : Movie Review

The conditions that the Jews and other were put through were super horrible. They were forced into boxcars that didn’t have anything in them and they wondered where they were and where they were going. They stood in the boxcars for days with no food or water to keep them alive. (Joseph)(Source 3) Along their way to the concentration camps they were exposed to harsh weather. In the summer it was scorching hot and in the winter it was freezing cold. Since they were shoved amongst each other they suffered from suffocation. Along their journey many young and old died along the way (“The Holocaust”)(Source 2). Inside the boxcars there was no windows or anyway to breath. It was also very unsanitary because of the abundance of people in them and they didn’t have any water to at least wash themselves with. All they could do was stand there in the dark and wait (Joseph) (Source

The Auschwitz camp used its prisoners for forced labor. The Nazis treated the Jews poorly and as of they were nothing. Ushmm.org states “Jewish women who had been assigned to forced labor in a nearby armaments factory”. Between the years 1940-45 out of 1.3 million Jews, 1.1 million died. All of those innocent people died only because their race was hated by one very powerful, but very convincing man. After a year of the camp existing, the SS and the police cleared about forty square meters for the camp. They had all of this cleared by forced labor from the Jews. The Nazis were very cruel to the Jews and for a certain amount of time this camp was used as a killing center. Those cold- hearted people killed men, women, and innocent

Throughout the entire novel the theme of dehumanization is particularly evident in both the prisoner workers and the transport prisoners. The Nazi guards are said to have “beefy” (pg. 41) faces, while an S.S. officer is described as having a “rat-like smile” as she “sniffed around” (pg. 41) the ramp. Prisoners are referred to as “standing around like sheep” (pg. 48). Starving Greek prisoners are compared to “huge human insects” (pg. 35). Even the transport trucks are called “mad dogs” (pg. 41). Everyone is treated and processed like livestock. “Trucks drive around, loading up lumber, cement, people” (pg. 34), is yet another example of how a human life was lowered to that of a mere object. A corpse is simply a “mound of meat” (pg. 45), and dead babies are carried out of the transport “like chickens, several in each hand” (pg. 39). The poisonous compound Cyclone B used to kill the prisoners was “an effective killer of lice in clothing and of men in gas chambers” (pg. 29).

Sobibor is a camp built in the early 40's. Sobibor is near the present-day eastern border of Poland. Policemen in Lublin had to murder Jews of the general government. Sobibor was surrounded by a minefield 50 feet wide. Commanders of the sobibor killing center were the first lieutenant franz strangle from April until August.

The Germans in charge of coming up with a sufficient means of transportation had a heavy sense of superiority in that their prisoners were lower than animals. They had only tried to maintain the cheapest, most efficient method of transit of the Jews to their concentration camp. The deportees who survived were left with a scarring imprint of this trip, as it was the first branch of their torture, for most, the rest of their lives. After two interviews with two different survivors, it is inferred that the same approach was used for all the prisoners being transported to their destination of their demise. The people who were forced to endure this dehumanizing means of transit underwent a complete stripping of humanity that foreshadowed their ultimate

“The Jews were transported, either by trains or trucks to six camps; Poland, Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, Auschwitz-Birkenau, and Majdanek-Lublin. These camps were called extermination camps. The trips on the train took a few hours and sometimes it took days. The people were crammed into boxcars until there was no room for anyone to move. Freight cars had no seats, no bathroom facilities, and only slatted openings as windows, so inside it was dark, and the air reeked with the smell of bodies and human waste” (Bachrach, 1994, p. 48). Mendy Berger, a Holocaust survivor remembered the train ride and stated, “One hundred people standing in a locked railroad car, no food, no water, people dying, the smell of the dead, and we had no toilets. We did it right where we were standing, and we couldn’t move away from it” (Adler 1989, p. 67). Arthur Rubin, another Holocaust survivor recounts “children were crying for water, and mothers’ hearts were torn because they were unable to help them…..The train stopped at various stations. There were women standing near the railroad tracks with

The prisoners managed to survive physically by enduring labor with lots of tenacity. In the document, it states, “There the Jews are unloaded and examined for their fitness to work by a team of doctors, in the presence of the camp commandant and several SS officers. At this point anyone who can somehow be incorporated into the work program is put in a special camp” (Doc. A). This quote shows that those who appear fit to work

Once the Jews got to the camp, the Nazis took their belongings and gave them very thin clothing. They were separated into groups based on strengths and who could work. The babies and handicapped were immediately killed. “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke.

This was a really important event that happened in the book because it was pure cruelty the fact that there was a lot of people stuffed in a train and had to be transferred from train to train. The SS officers literally treated them like wild animals. “ The train had stopped and the Jews were ordered to get off and onto waiting trucks. The truck reach towards a forest” (29). This quote shows the mess that happened to them there, and on there to the camp. The weren't prepare for what was gonna actually happened, they probably didn't know it was gonna get worst. In conclusion, this shows how the Jews were being treated when they got transported to the

Food shortages were common in the camps. Many people went days without eating and black markets were set up everywhere during these times, inexpensively sold. The amount these camps has un-humanized some people is a tragic tale but the whole war beginning to end is another.

Not many cared to live any longer. They had nothing. "Those who had gold in their mouths were listed by numbers, I had a gold crown."(49) They were skin and bone. They got just enough food to keep them alive and suffering. Many died everyday, yet no one even remembered, they were all soon forgotten. "Listen to me kid. Don’t forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, every man for himself... Let me give you advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father. You can't help him anymore. You should be taking his ration... I thought deep down, not daring to admit to myself, to late to save your old man." (110) their identity was so lost he almost considered taking his dads

Inmates resembled skeletons and were so weak they were unable to move. The smell of burning bodies was ever present and piles of corpses were scattered around the camp. However, you could be “saved” from the crematoria to be used as test subjects to cruel experimentation and used as lab rats for any experiment the scientists wanted to conduct. Later in the war, extermination camps were built. These were specialized for the mass murder of Jews using Zyklon B to ensure a painful, long, and torturous death. The bodies would then be thrown into the fire and all clothes, teeth, and shoes would be sent to pursue the German war front. At max efficiency, 20,000 people would be killed in the gas chambers a day. As the red Army approached near to liberate the Jews in concentration and extermination camps, SS officers sent prisoners on a death march across hundreds of miles, where they ran with no food or water, no matter the weather, until they reached the closest camp. SS officers proceeded to blow up the camps to hide the genocide from the

Eventually Jews and other ‘undesirables’ were sent to death camps, while others went to forced labour camps and used as slaves to produce materials for weapons in war, and a range of goods, such as shoes, clothes and good. These death camps

     These camps were set up along railroad lines so that the prisoners would be conveniently close to their destination. Unfortunately, many prisoners didn't even survive the train ride to the camps. Herded like cattle, exhaustion, disease, and starvation ended the long treacherous journey for many of the prisoners. On the trains, Jews were starved of food and water for days. Nearly 8% of the people did not even survive the ride to the camps. (Nyiszli, 37)

To get to Sobibor Jews came by lorry, cart, foot, and many by train. A lorry was was a truck. Some camp prisoners wore blue jumpsuits to help other Jews off the train. Women and children were taken to the bath house and men were taken to work. The bath house are the gas chambers. Why wouldn't they just have the children work at the camp and take the men and women to the bath house? Created: 01/17/2017 02:31 PM The victims would not realize that this moment would be there last time to speak to one another. If the camp needed to replenish it workers then the guards would shout out tailors, seamstresses, blacksmiths and carpenters. Why wouldn't the victims realize since they saw fences and the guards yanking them off the trains when they wouldn't come down fast. Created: 01/19/2017 01:46