New Holocaust movie “Son of Saul” is in theaters today

Update January 18, 2016:  This news article calls the movie Son of Saul “Jewish Propaganda.”  http://www.jewishpress.com/news/hungarians-denounce-oscar-nominated-son-of-saul-as-jewish-propaganda/2016/01/18/

I greatly admire the photo above which is shown at the top of this news article about the film entitled Son of Saul, which was directed by Laslo Nemes:  http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/movies/in-son-of-saul-laszlo-nemes-expands-the-language-of-holocaust-films.html?_r=0

In preparation for seeing the film, I read about it on the news article cited above.

Photo from the film Son of Saul

The following quote is from the news article about the film:

In “Son of Saul” Laszlo Nemes Expands the Language of Holocaust Films

“Son of Saul” is filmed in long, restless takes, with no soundtrack besides the grim cacophony of a death camp — the slamming of doors, the sifting through possessions — and is set over the course of a day and a half in October 1944. It follows Saul Auslander, a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the Jews forced to dispose of the human remains from the gas chambers, as he tries to rescue a dead boy’s body from meeting the fate of the ovens.

[…]

The film plays out on the face of Saul, a debut film performance by Geza Rohrig, a Hungarian poet whom Mr. Nemes met while studying at New York University’s film school. During the 28-day shoot, he had Mr. Rohrig rehearse for hours before filming takes, three to four minutes each, with a 35-millimeter camera placed about 20 inches from his face.

“I had to be superfocused, because every little bit of change” mattered, Mr. Rohrig said. “Like on the surface of water — even if you blow the water, you can immediately see, it shows everything.”

Mr. Rohrig, 48, who took a leave from his job teaching Jewish studies at a Brooklyn private school to promote the film, volunteers for a Jewish burial society. He spent months visiting Auschwitz as a student in Poland in the 1980s and wrote a book of poems about it. He said he regarded the Sonderkommando as victims, not perpetrators, adding that they were the only Jews in the camp to understand that they faced certain death and that his acting had to reflect that knowledge.

End quote

Prepare yourself for a new Holocaust movie in theaters on December 18th

You have only one week to prepare yourself for a new block-buster movie coming out in theaters on December 18, 2015. The movie is about the Sonderkommando Jews who burned the bodies of the Jews after they were gassed.

I wrote about this on this previous blog post:  https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2011/10/18/the-gas-chambers-at-auschwitz-birkenau/

You can read about the movie at http://www.jewishlinkbwc.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7395:riverdale-resident-shines-in-new-epic-holocaust-film&catid=156:features&Itemid=585

This quote is from the article about the movie:

The film portrays an aspect of the Holocaust that has yet to be explored.

“Two out of three Jews were murdered in the Holocaust in Europe,” explained Rohrig. “Most or all I have seen in movies are always about the lucky third one. These movies are survival tales and we wanted to make a movie not about the exception but the norm and the norm was death.”

It’s true. All we ever hear about are the Jews who survived the Holocaust, not the names of the Jews who were gassed.   The Nazis were no fools — they didn’t keep the names of the Jews who were gassed.

There are still numerous survivors, who are out on the lecture circuit telling their unique stories about how they survived and are still alive today.

The following quote is from the news article:

Begin quote

Son of Saul, being released in the United States on December 18th, is like no other Holocaust film. Winner of the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, the film continues to wow critics, as it tells the story of Saul Auslander, who has the dubious distinction of being part of the Sonderkommando at Auschwitz.

“Their lives were way more difficult than those of the prisoners,” Röhrig, who prefers to be called Rafi, told The Jewish Link. “They were recruited upon their arrival at Auschwitz. The Nazis promised them a better life, told them they would live in a heated area but they didn’t give them any advance notice or an accurate job description.”

That job was to usher unknowing victims into the gas chambers and after their deaths, readying the room for the next group to be annihilated.

“They would separate the inter-tangled bodies, search them for valuables, cut the women’s hair, burn the bodies, pulverize the bigger bones that were still somewhat intact, take the ashes and dispose of them in the river,” said Röhrig. “The crematorium did not stop. There were day shifts. There were night shifts. And then every four months, they themselves were gassed.”   End quote

Wait a minute!  The Nazis threw ashes into a river at Auschwitz?  I don’t think so!  The Nazis were all about preserving the environment, even before this became popular.

The Sola river that runs through the town of Auschwitz

The SS men swam in the river that runs through the town of Auschwitz.  People in the town washed their clothes in this river.  Do you really think that Hitler would have allowed the ashes of millions of Jews to contaminate the rivers?

I previously blogged about the disposal of the ashes at Auschwitz-Birkenau at https://furtherglory.wordpress.com/2011/06/27/where-are-the-ashes-of-the-1-1-million-people-killed-at-auschwitz-birkenau/

 

Movie entitled “Son of Saul” in theaters Dec. 18, 2015

Photo from Wikipedia shows Sonderkommando Jews with a bone grinder.

According to Wikipedia:

Sonderkommandos were work units made up of German Nazi death camp prisoners. They were composed almost entirely of Jews who were forced, on threat of their own deaths, to aid with the disposal of gas chamber victims during the Holocaust.

The following Sonderkommandos survived the Holocaust:  Zalman Gradowski, Filip Müller, Henryk Tauber, Leib Langfus, Morris Venezia, Henryk Mandelbaum [Saul Ausländer is a fictional character]

Photo of Sonderkommando shoving a body into an oven at Dachau is an re-enactment, done after Dachau was libertated

A photo similar to the one above is included in the news story and it is purported to be a real photo of a Sonderkommando Jew shoving a body into an oven.

The following information, about the movie entitled Son of Saul, is from the movie review website known as “Rotten Tomatoes”.

October 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Saul Ausländer is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners isolated from the camp and forced to assist the Nazis in the machinery of large-scale extermination. While working in one of the crematoriums, Saul discovers the corpse of a boy he takes for his son. As the Sonderkomando plans a rebellion, Saul decides to carry out an impossible task: save the child’s body from the flames, find a rabbi to recite the mourner’s Kaddish and …
Rating: R (for disturbing violent content, and some graphic nudity)
Genre: Drama
In Theaters: Dec 18, 2015 Limited
Runtime: 1 hr. 47 min.
Sony Pictures Classics

You can read the following review of the movie on this website:

Son of Saul

Based on the experience of a Hungarian Jew held in a concentration camp during the Second World War, Son of Saul follows a man who has the harrowing job of leading prisoners into the showers where they will be executed and cleaning up afterwards by shovelling their remains into the river.

Shaken by the death of one young boy, he is driven to give him a proper Jewish burial. Featuring superb acting on all levels, director Laszlo Nemes takes us right into the camp through a unique use of surround sound and filming in 35mm. 5 out of 5 stars. – Sian Jones, producer.

Among the horrors of the Holocaust, the Nazis assigned so-called Sondercommandos a peculiarly dehumanizing job: to herd fellow inmates into gas chambers and dispose of their bodies. Saul is one such man, his face an effigy of pain. When he believes he’s found his own son among the dead, his humanity is restored as he attempts to give the boy a proper burial.

Much of the film lingers on Saul’s face, leaving the most lurid shots out of focus: an interesting directorial choice that avoids a fetishistic lingering on the bodies of victims that still allows viewers to feel the full oppressiveness of his situation. A powerful, devastating film. 5 out of 5 stars. – Deana Sumanac-Johnson, reporter.

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I am looking forward to seeing this movie in December.  I will write a review of the movie after I see it. You can be sure that I will have a lot of criticism of this movie.