Escape from Sobibor

I first got this out on video many years back. Being interested in the holocaust from a young age,and having traveled through Poland in the early eighties I got this out of interest.Amazing to think it was done for television and not cinema. I,was on the edge of my seat all the way through,could hardly breath all through the film,did not take my eyes off the screen.The ending is both shattering and uplifting.Even more so knowing the outcome of some of the lives. And how simply fitting a denouement on the end credits the result of the police investigation, give that policeman a medal. On the whole the acting is exceptional, and by that I mean one forgets the actor and sees only the person as real. In fact it has that real life documentary feel to the story. Most satisfying to have seen it before Rutger got semi-famous.

One of the best films best about the Nazi holocaust,and the atrocities committed in the concentration camps,ESCAPE FROM SOBIBOR is based on a true story of an heroic uprising in one of these camps of death and horror.Some of the scenes depicted are so horrific that they are very hard to watch,but we are left cheering at the escape at the end as a reaction to the brutalities and inhumanity we witness beforehand.

The cast is excellent,with fine actors such as Alan Arkin,Jack Shepherd,Rutger Hauer on-hand,but a special note should be made of Harmut Becker's performance as the evil,sadistic,murdering monster Sgt Wagner.He is completely without any redeeming features whatsoever,and Becker is totally convincing in the part.I wished this character to come to a enormously nasty end,though he didn't get it;the end credits inform us that Wagner was murdered in a fascist South American country in 1978.

British director Jack Gold is a talented director who made a few decent big-screen films,but his best work was left for TV films like THE NAKED CIVIL SERVANT,CATHOLICS,and GOODNIGHT MR TOM.This may be his best.

..for this somehow little known WW2 movie.If you liked "The Great Escape" or "Schindler`s List" for ex.,you`ll love this movie.It`s just as realistic and well played as those two.Production is high and the setting is very...yes,realistic.There are several gruesome execution scenes in this movie and it will make you hate the Nazis to the bone.What sick people!! I almost covered my eyes several times,but a movie like this is very important information of what happened in the death camps. Arkin,Hauer and Joanne Pacula are all great in this terrific WW2 escape movie.If this movie had been an theatrical release and not a TV miniseries,it would have won several Oscars,no doubt.Watch it!(if you can find it).

Rating 9/10

This movie did a good job of showing what happened and how prisioners coped with life in a nazi death camp. The acting was good and you really get a good depiction of death camp life. However, I would not say that this was better than the masterpiece that SCHINDLERS LIST was.

Oh by the way, this movie didnt show what happened after the prisioners escaped. Everyone left behind at the death camp was executed the next day, some being buried alive because the nazis were in a rush to shut the camp down. The area was then simply planted over with trees so today when people walk on the grounds where Sobibor was, many feet underneath them is the remains of thousands of people.....

I first saw this in the early 2k on cable tv.

The gas chamber scene with the naked people in line n the dog attack scene stayed with me n haunted my sleep for months.

Revisited it recently on a dvd which I own.

The movie is very poignant n grim at times but the escape n the deaths of the Nazis will put smile.

Alan Arkin gave a memorable performance.

Simon Gregor, as Shlomo is noteworthy n Rutger Hauer is always a treat to watch.