The World Will Tremble

This powerful film is both compelling and difficult to watch. It is based on the true accounts of two escapees from the Chelmno Death Camp, shedding light on one of the lesser-known yet horrific chapters of the Holocaust.

The movie reveals how Jews were deceived into believing they were being sent to labor camps, leading many to unknowingly cooperate with the Nazis. It then delivers a brutally honest depiction of how the camp operated-showing the systematic extermination of Jews upon arrival, and the horrific tasks forced upon the few prisoners kept alive, including sorting the belongings of the murdered, digging mass graves, and disposing of bodies.

For those interested in learning more, search for "Szlama Ber Winer," the "Grojanowski Report," and "Mordechaï Podchlebnik" on Wikipedia.

The unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust never cease to leave audiences aghast and speechless, particularly when it comes to wondering how something like this ever could have been allowed to happen in the supposedly "civilized" world of 20th Century Europe. However, those of us alive today often fail to consider that news didn't travel quite as fast or as widely in those days as it does currently. So, when it came to news about the Nazi death camps that claimed the lives of six million Jews in cold, calculated fashion, word of the carnage didn't make its way onto the world stage until after it had been unfolding for some time. And, were it not for courageous whistleblowing efforts of two escaped prisoners from the Germans' first extermination facility in Chelmo, Poland, it may have taken even longer for the accounts to surface. Writer-director Lior Geller's fact-based release tells the story of two runaway gravediggers, Solomon Wiener (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and Michael Podchlebnik (Jeremy Newmark Jones), who fled the camp and made their way to the Jewish ghetto in Grabow, Poland, where they made contact with a rabi (Anton Lesser) who had connections to the Polish resistance movement. Solomon gave a full account of what was happening at Chelmo, the first reported testimony about Nazi atrocities against the Jewish community. This report was subsequently smuggled to London by members of the Jewish Underground, who presented it to the BBC for public broadcast in June 1942. And, at last, the world was aware of the butchery that was transpiring. From this, one would assume that this never-before-told story would make for a compelling film. However, when compared to other offerings about the Holocaust, this release, regrettably, comes up somewhat short. Perhaps the biggest issue here is the disproportionate emphasis that the narrative places on the already-well-known depraved and sadistic practices of the Nazis, events that account for nearly the entire opening half of the picture. As necessary as the depiction of these shocking and infuriating developments may be in setting the stage for what's to come, the amount of footage devoted to this part of the story tends to belabor the point. In fact, it's so prevalent that it nearly overshadows the heroic and more compelling account of the prisoners' harrowing escape, their tearful, gut-wrenching recounting about life and death at the so-called "work camp," and their exposure of the many lies that the Germans brazenly propounded about the nature of the facility. What's more, the picture could also use some shoring up in some of its technical areas, such as sound quality, lighting, editing, and a somewhat puzzling and uneven mixture of dialogue in German and English. To the film's credit, the fine performances of the three principals and its moving, emotive score help to make up for these shortcomings in a picture that gets progressively better the further one gets into it. And, to be sure, "The World Will Tremble" is by no means a bad film, but a number of other previous releases provide more effective accounts and treatments of this atrocity, such as "Sophie's Choice" (1982), "Schindler's List" (1993), "Remember" (2016), "The Zone of Interest" (2023) and "Lee" (2024), as well as the TV miniseries "Holocaust" (1978). Stories about this period in history are truly important and deserve commensurate treatment; it's nevertheless disappointing that this one didn't quite receive the handling it merits.

Chelmno, Poland, 1942.

The Germans invaded the country three years ago, annexing Poland's Western region. Jews have been forced into ghettos or deported to the East. A group of Jewish male prisoners are assigned by their captors to forced labor. They dig trenches in fields, where the bodies of thousands of primarily Jewish men, women and children are deposited after being gassed in trucks. A pipe from the truck's exhaust is turned back into the enclosed vehicle. You can hear the screams of the people as they are asphyxiated. Sometimes the gas isn't strong enough and the dying captives are shot in the head after the doors are opened.

The Nazi horde has not yet perfected the use of permanent gas chambers to use for even larger mass killings, but they're close. The plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, Sobibor, Treblinka, Belzec and Majdanek are near completion. Hitler's Final Solution: exterminate the Jews, Gypsies and Soviet POW's from Europe; 2.7 million of them consider Poland their home.

The film, The World Will Tremble is based on the astounding but true story of a group of prisoners who attempt to escape certain death. Chelmno is a death camp, though the Germans who come into towns throughout Poland and forcibly round up the residents, tell the new arrivals "you have endured much. Now you will get wages, food.... Just put your valuables in one place and you'll get a receipt to retrieve them later." Obviously, he is lying.

The Jewish gravediggers are forced to stand silently, knowing all on the transport will be killed. We're taken through the barracks, where piles of discarded clothing and household goods, formerly belonging to the now dead, are stacked to be raided by the Germans.

Writer/Director Lior Geller follows the story of the men, Solomon Wiener (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), Michael Podchlebnik (Jeremy Neumark Jones) and Wolf (Charlie MacGechan) who know that if they stay at the camp, they will surely perish, yet the thought of escaping strikes them as impossible. "Just stay alive" is the mantra they all follow, yet this is not living. The men agree that they are 'already dead'. The makings of an escape plan are hatched after one of the prisoners are forced to bury the bodies of his family who were just gassed in the truck, while the others watch and grieve with him.

If you saw the film, The Zone of Interest, about the attempt to normalize what is going on in Poland in a house directly adjacent to the walls of Auschwitz, The World Will Tremble is its dark underbelly. Thrilling, yet devastating. This is humanity at its most depraved; many scenes are difficult to watch. This film is the first time Chelmno has been depicted on screen.

If this brutality is what we know of the Holocaust, imagine what we still have no knowledge of. One of these men manages to survive and get the truth out to the world about what is going on in Poland. They know there must be an eyewitness account to alert the world that Chelmno is not a work-camp; it's a death-camp. The route he takes, the sacrifices made along the way, are gut-wrenching to watch. The world should never forget, never repeat the horror. Unfortunately, time erases and truth fades, as we are now seeing in present day across the globe.

An emotional movie about the Chelmno extermination camp (Poland), where Jews were gassed immediately in one of the gas vans upon arrival. Only a few survived. Their testimonies resulted in the first reports of the gassing of Jews by the Germans. This movie by director Lior Geller tells the true story of several survivors. Dramatic music evokes feelings of helplessness and despair.

The World Will Tremble isn't here to comfort you. It doesn't offer catharsis or release. It traps you in the raw, unrelenting despair of its characters, and that's precisely the point. Some critics have knocked it for being emotionally oppressive. I'd argue it's immersive. You don't watch this film, you endure it, the way its characters endured the unimaginable.

Oliver Jackson-Cohen is phenomenal. His portrayal of a prisoner in the Chelmno extermination camp simmers with quiet despair. He doesn't need dramatic monologues. His performance is internal, bone-deep. You feel every ounce of exhaustion, fear, and spiritual collapse.

And then there's Michael Epp as the Nazi camp commander. At first glance, his performance might seem theatrical, too stylized, too cold. But it slowly reveals itself as terrifyingly calculated. He radiates a kind of casual, almost gleeful evil that feels otherworldly until you remember this was real. His blissful detachment becomes the perfect counterpoint to Jackson-Cohen's torment-matching bliss for despair, beat for beat.

Yes, the film is unrelentingly tense. Yes, it's emotionally exhausting. But when you're telling a story set in Chelmno, the first Nazi extermination camp-anything less would feel dishonest. The constant pressure is a narrative choice meant to evoke the psychological cage its characters can't escape.

Critics may call it overacted or overwrought. I call it a punch to the soul-and that's exactly what it should be. This film doesn't aim to entertain. It aims to haunt. And it does.