Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3063 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-01-26
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 145 minutes

Synopsis
Horrifyingly true story of the Nazi's inhumane treatment of Jews at a secluded death camp. Despite the terrible odds, a number of emaciated prisoners successfully organised an escape resulting in the setting loose of over 600 inmates, some 320 actually getting to freedom. TV screened.

Customer Reviews

Holocaust story which still has great heart
Sobibor was one of a small number of camps which the nazis built for one solitary purpose: Murder. The vast majority of people arriving were sent straight to the gas chambers. It did however retain a number of prisoners to process the victims and their stolen possessions. Escape from Sobibor is set within this group of prisoners who realise their days are numbered before they too are murdered. They realise the only solution fro them is to escape.

This is a story with wonderful performaces from Rutger Hauer Alan Arkin Joanna Pakula and Jack Shepherd. Shepherds performance as he relises that his wife and children are not as he is told, following him, but are in fact now dead - Alan Arkin telling how he finds his childs coat in a pile of garments he is sorting will break your heart.

This is a hard film to watch but none the less it has great heart. Hauer's performance as the Russian Soldier has gentle strength. It tells the holocaust story in a different way to Shindler's List, but it belongs in the group of films you must see just as much.

This version isn't labelled 'uncut version' but is none the less 3 minutes longer that the uncut version - I can't answer that as this review was from the copy I watched on UK TV when it was first made...

holocaust
I cannot say how many times i have watched this film[and many more like it]since i saw it many years ago on tv,its a brilliant cure when you think lifes a bitch,i put this on and bang it brings me back thinking my life is good no room for complaints,wot happened in this true account of life is horrendous but very well portrayed by brilliant actors and more people should watch these films so its never forgotten,they put life in prospective for you.

A Genuinely Great Escape
Anyone used to recent films about the Holocaust such as " Shindler's List" and " Life is Beautiful" may be disappointed with this film. Firstly it does not have the same production values, the " mise en scene" that distinguishes great directors from the run of the mill.Nor does it have an "A" list cast although both Alan Arkin and Rutger Haur were well known at that time and both give memorable performances. But in some ways this contributes to the power of the film. Based on real events the story centres on the organisers of the mass escape from the Sorbibor Death Camp in Eastern Poland. The film is fast moving and the narrative is one of a conventional action movie. None of the visual horror of a Nazi Death Camp is conveyed. The inmates look relatively well nourished and clean. But then we are reminded that many of these inmates were skilled workers or involved in the " dirty" work of sifting through murdered Jews belongings after they were gassed, maintaining the warehouses of clothes, jewellery and extracted teeth and shaven hair for the "pioneering" German approach to recycling and " greeting" their condemned brethern off the trains by "helping" them with their lugguage. An exercise in deceit and perverse irony by the Nazi Kommandant who sought to keep order by creating an initial sense of " normality" on the arrival of the Jewish cargo from the trains.

Its general knowledge that these prisoners were eventually murdered as well and they too were aware of this.For example there are scenes of prisoners attempting to escape being killed and a spine chilling scene of soon to be executed prisoners being forced to pick a " partner" from the other inmates to die with in collective retribution for their escape attempt.

Before then they would have been kept relativily healthy whilst the were useful. They were allowed to mix freely when not working, and would have had access to tools such as knives and hammers which could easily be made into weopens.This relatively " priveleged" position enabled the prisoners to have the means to escape. In all, out of 600 inmates 300 managed to breach the perimeter fence after meticulously executing most of the German and Ukrainian gaurds with their improvised weopens. Several were killed in the attempt by the surviving camp gaurds whilst others were either recaptured and murdered or murdered in transit by farmers etc who wanted whatever valuable they had with them. Others just simply disappeared and were never seen again. However this film was put together on the testimony of the several survivors and is a tribute to their bravery, spirit and ingenuity. This is where it differs from a Hollywood interpration. There is no single " saviour" such as in "Shindler's List". It focuses on certain individuals but the escape is seen as a community working together. Jews as several heros, working for the collective good for all and not as passive victims. It is all the better film for that, and is mirrored in the excellent ensemble acting of the American, British and Pan-European cast.