The Grey Zone, the film

"The true story of Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, a Hungarian Jew chosen by Josef Mengele to be the head pathologist at Auschwitz. Nyiszli was one of Auschwitz's Sonderkommandos - Special Squads of Jewish prisoners placed by the Nazis in the excruciating moral dilemma of helping to exterminate fellow Jews in exchange for a few more months of life. Together, the Sonderkommandos struggled to organize the only armed revolt that would ever take place at Auschwitz. As the rebellion is about to commence, a group from the unit discovers a 14-year-old girl who has miraculously survived a gassing. A catalyst for their desperate attempt at personal redemption, the men become obsessed with saving this one child, even if doing so endangers the uprising which could save thousands. To what terrible lengths are we willing to go to save our own lives, and what in turn would we sacrifice to save the lives of others?"

This movie is brutal in depicting the work of the Sonderkommandos, the Jewish prisoners forced to work in the crematoriums at Auschwitz in exchange for four more months of life and better food and drink. Altogether during the course of the gassing and buring of bodies there were 13 groups of Sonderkommandos who usually worked for 4 months before they were killed. The twelth group managed a rebellion which lead to the partial destruction of crematorium 3.

The story is factual based on the prison diaries of a Hungarian Jewish physician who was forced to perform human experiments himself in exchange for the special protection of his wife and daughter and his own life.

The inhumanity and cruelty seems not only outrageous, but numbingly unbelievable. Viewing this film is a sobering lesson in humility about how callous and "crazy" human ideologies can become especially when the ideology becomes a shared psychosis that people in power can perpetrate on their fellow human beings.

The bottom line is "Question ideological authority!"

I recommend this film but advise caution because of its content for children.

Grey Zone, The (2001)