Overwhelming as well as devastating portrayal of survival against Nazi villains and all irrational obstacles . The true story of Martin Gray (Jacques Penot as young boy and Michael York as mature man) , a Polish survivor of the holocaust, from how he survived the German invasion , how got captured . He is sent to a concentration camp , there victims were brought to the camp in unventilated transports . Thus , when the incoming transports , mostly Jews , SS soldiers made instant decisions , those who were fit to labors were sent into the camp , others including the children , were dispatched immediately to the gas chambers where lots of Jews were executed . And all but a handful were gassed after arrival , the gas chambers could accommodate hundred prisoners at one time , most of their corpses were burned in open pits . He subsequently escaped and he fought back with the rebels, to his life in the Soviet army as a KGB agent, and the building of his new life in North America , there he marries a beautiful woman (Brigitte Fossey) but again takes place astonishing tragedies .
This is an emotionally tale and very decent drama about a Jew and his family from uprising until terrible ending in the Warsaw ghetto . Roberto Enrico correctly directs a spellbinding portrait about the holocaust with intense drama , emotion and spectacular as well as sad scenes . A splendid French all-star-cast gives magnificent acting in real-life characters . The picture is based on real events , these are the followings : It deals with ¨Varsovia rebellion¨ and ¨Death Camps¨ such as Sobibór , Chelmno , Majanek , Belzec and Treblinka were four large death camps in the Lublin district of Poland transformed into extermination centers to implement the policy of genocide thought at the Wannsee Conference . In 1939, after the invasion of Poland, Reinhard Heydrich chief of Gestapo began to place all Polish Jews in ghettos, where they could slowly die of hunger and disease. The campaign was to be administered by the Waffen-SS the party's military formations that fought as integral units in the armed forces . The Warsaw ghetto was the largest of these segregated areas established by the Nazis in Poland. In 1940 Heydrich, using the excuse that the spread of typhus had to be contained, set up a special section 11 miles in circumference enclosed by a brick wall 10 feet high . The cost was paid by the Judenrat , the Jewish Council of twenty-four-members, which was in charge of Jewish affairs inside the ghetto . The daily struggle against hunger and disease is aggravated by the German demands for "deportations to the east" that many begin to suspect are camouflaged mass murders . Later on , there takes place the upheaval by a handful of fighters until the final destruction . The Nazi authorities began intensified measure on July 22, 1942. As a memorial to Heydrich, Heirich Himmler ordered all Jews except those already in concentration camps to be deported .The ghetto and all labor camps would then be destroyed. Mass deportations to the gas chambers of Treblinka began. In two months 300.000 Jews were eliminated. The Judenrat was ordered to deliver 6.000 Jews daily for deportation. Each day thousands were driven by guards through the gates.Young Zionists, pioneers training to go to Palestine, mobilized first to be followed by members of the Polish workers party . On July 28, 1942, the Jewish Combat organization consisting about 1.000 men and boys was formed. All resolved to kill as many of their tormentors as they could before they died. The Jews fighting from rooftops, cellars, and attics,Poles outside the ghetto now began to send in more revolvers, grenades, and dynamite. In 1943 the guerrillas divided into twenty-two groups built an intricate network underground cellars and tunnels ,linked with command posts .
The motion picture was stunningly directed by Robert Enrico . He was a good professional who shot interesting films as ¨Jailsbird vacation¨ , ¨Rum Runners¨, ¨The wise guys¨ ¨The old fusil¨ and of course his masterpiece ¨The adventurers¨ . Rating : 7,5 , better than average. The film will appeal to French cinema lovers
