courtneybaker-07047 Review of Sobibor

Sobibor (2018)

The most appalling and revolting dramatisation of the Holocaust I have ever witnessed

[1/10 · 31 October 2018]

Anyone who gives a positive appraisal of this film clearly does not understand the Holocaust or simply does not care about the dramatisation of death and suffering for entertainment. I cannot articulate my horror and disgust at this film's revolting portrayal of Sobibor - an Operation Reinhard extermination camp where 200,000-500,000 people were murdered. It uses and abuses the mass murder of thousands of people to form a Hollywood-style dramatisation akin to a slasher film that is so utterly disrespectful to the lived experiences of the victims that it would be laughable if it was not so appalling. I left after approximately 15 minutes of this film. The first few minutes, however, were enough for anyone with any real knowledge or appreciation of the horrors of the death-camps to feel sick. I understand that some people positively reviewed this film because they believe that it attempts to convey the horrors of the death camps. I can only imagine that this is due largely to ignorance and/or to a desensitisation to atrocity as it so often portrayed in film and the media. The film begins with the arrival of Jews to Sobibor. They arrive with great smiles on their faces,apparently arriving with first class tickets from the ghettoes and transit camps. In reality, most deportees to the deathcamps travelled for several days standing, with no food, water or facillities from ghettoes and transit camps where they spent months living in hell if they did not die from disease, murder, or starvation. In Yitzhak Arad's book Belzec, Soibor, Treblinka he includes the testimony of survivor Ada Lichtmann who described the journey to Sobibor: "We were packed into a closed cattle train. Inside the freight cars it was so dense that it was impossible to move... Soldiers entered the car and robbed us and even cut off fingers with rings." Yet, those getting off the trains in the film are seen whistling and smiling which only enforces pejorative depictions of Holocaust victims as "sheep who went to the slaughter" rather than as viciously brutalised and dehumanized people who largely had no meaningful way to prevent their deaths. Whilst there are some historical accuracies in this film, they are vague attempts to legitimise the films overwhelmingly vacuous portrayal of mass murder. Examples of attempts at historical accuracy include the processing of luggage (those that arrived at Sobibor were told they could collect their belongings after processing and were even given tokens) and the brief shot of the geese whose purpose in Sobibor supposedly was to drown out the sound of screaming in the gas chambers with their loud squawking. The depiction of the murder of women in the gas chambers was the most horrific and repulsive fictionalisation. The women are depicted as calmly walking to the "showers" before gas is poured on to them. They begin to choke and cry. One woman vomits whilst gazing pointedly at a SS officer peering through a big glass window. In reality, people were viciously beaten, whipped and crammed into the chambers where they suffocated to death. Those who were tasked with removing the bodies afterwards described how they found the victims piled on top of each other as they desperately climbed atop one another to reach fresh air. This is no where to be seen in Khabensky's Sobibor. Indeed, any attempt to portray such horror is to use and abuse immense suffering under the guise of portraying atrocity. Yet this film particularly desecrates the memory of those brutally murdered. This film is a spineless attempt to utilise unfathomable horror and suffering for entertainment - and profit. I left soon after witnessing gruesome scenes of prisoners being shot as punishment for failed escape attempts. I did not witness what I read in reviews about brutal portrayals of rape and murder but I do not need to. If you genuinely want to understand Sobibor, or any of the deathcamps, extermination camps, ghettoes or mass killing and abuses that took place during the Holocaust let me save you the trouble - you cannot understand, not truly. And no vacuous, gruesome fictionalisation can convey that horror and unfathomable suffering to you. Instead, listen to survivors: read their memoirs, listen to their testimonies and remember the victims - respectfully. Do not turn their suffering and their murder into titillating, exciting entertainment. Do not watch Sobibor.