Those
who have seen the original film footage of the horrors of
the Nazi concentration camps, whether in the 1955 classic
Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog)
or as evidence in the trial of Nazis presented in Nuremberg
(1999), may think that they are inured to the shock of seeing
dead bodies piled on top of one another in a pit. But they
might want to empty out their popcorn bags for possible use
while viewing The Grey Zone, directed
by Tim Blake Nelson, who brings his 1996 play to the screen.
Titles at the beginning of the film tell us that the Nazis
at the Birkenau death camp did not use Germans to lead Jews
into the crematoria or to clean up afterward. They used Jews,
called Sonderkommandos, who were allowed ample food and reasonable
accommodations to perform the various tasks; but after four
months they, too, were executed. The story was later told
by Dr. Miklos Nyiszli (played by Allan Corduner), a skilled
Jewish physician who, in exchange for his life, volunteered
to perform medical experiments for Dr. Mengele (played by
Henry Stram). Accordingly, we see a trainload of Hungarian
Jews disembark at Birkenau. To the surreal accompaniment of
Jewish musicians playing Strauss waltzes, they walk into the
death chambers. When they arrive, they are told to hang all
their clothes on numbered coat racks, whereupon they are asked
to enter the gas chamber to delouse themselves. Jews, then,
rough up defiant prisoners, and we see one beaten to death
while his wife is screaming. Soon, a Jewish prisoner closes
the door to the gas chamber. The next task is to sort out
all the clothing and other possessions for use by the Germans
or even by the Jewish prisoners themselves. After the gas
kills everyone, the Jews dutifully load them on carts, move
them to the furnaces, and push the bodies manually along ramps
into the furnaces. Then the gas chamber is cleaned and repainted,
ready for the next load of victims. Meanwhile, women at a
nearby munitions factory, including a Lesbian, Dina (played
by Mira Sorvino), are smuggling gunpowder to the Jewish prisoners
at Birkenau, who in turn are planning a revolt. When Nazis
discover that gunpowder is missing, they torture Dina and
her lover Rosa (played by Natasha Lyonne) to find out where
the gunpowder is going; rather than divulge the information,
the two watch as the Nazis execute one female prisoner after
another until they run, hoping that the killings will stop
when they are shot. The Birkenau revolt consists of a few
rounds fired from an automatic weapon and explosions in two
of the crematoria. A few Nazis die, those in the revolt are
all executed, but the crematoria were never rebuilt, as the
Russians were then advancing through Poland. Throughout the
film, Birkenau's commandant Muhsfeldt (played by Harvey Keitel)
importunes the prisoners, trying to keep them in check psychologically.
But the most profound question, raised by Muhsfeldt, is why
a single Jew agreed to perform such tasks just to lengthen
his life by four months. The film is about the twelfth of
the thirteen Sonderkommandos. According to titles at the end,
Muhsfeldt was later tried as a war criminal and executed.
As an effort to bring the little-known Birkenau revolt to
the screen and as a vivid portrayal of the Nazi barbarities,
the Political Film Society has nominated The Grey
Zone for awards as best film exposé and
best film on human rights for 2002. MH
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