The Grey Zone 2002

In the chilling autumn of 1944, a determined group of prisoners from the Sonderkommando unit at the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp was secretly plotting a daring rebellion aimed at sabotaging one of the camp’s infamous crematoria and gas chambers. With the support of firearms provided by Polish sympathizers from a nearby village and gunpowder cunningly smuggled from the UNIO munitions factory by resourceful female prisoners, these brave souls clung to a flicker of hope for freedom. Despite their best efforts at discretion, the German authorities became aware of their plans, leading to brutal torture for the women involved. Nevertheless, their spirit remained unbroken.

Amidst this turmoil, Dr. Miklós Nyiszli, a Hungarian-Jewish doctor, grappled with his dual existence; he was bound by his obligation to work in Josef Mengele’s notorious medical laboratory while being deeply concerned for the safety of his wife and daughter held in the women’s labor camp. He finally gained a chance to see his family when Mengele permitted him to visit, fully aware that this would ensure their protection from the gas chambers.

The arrival of a new group of Hungarian Jewish prisoners introduced an overwhelming sense of despair. As they were herded toward the gas chambers, one particularly disruptive individual began vehemently criticizing Hoffman, a Sonderkommando tasked with directing them under the guise of “delousing.” The ensuing uproar pushed Hoffman to the brink, and he violently silenced the man with a flurry of blows.

Disturbed by the brutality, Hoffman later discovered a young girl miraculously alive beneath a heap of corpses in one of the gas chambers. He hurriedly rescued her and, after consulting with Schlermer, the insurgency leader, entrusted her care to Nyiszli, who managed to bring her back to life. The prisoners resolved to hide her within the confines of the children’s camp, cleverly concealing her in a dressing room. However, their plan quickly unraveled when SS-Oberscharführer Eric Muhsfeldt unexpectedly appeared. Upon noticing young Abramowics’s unauthorized presence, he executed him coldly, causing the girl to scream in fear, inadvertently exposing her hiding place. As Nyiszli attempted to speak with Muhsfeldt about the looming rebellion, he received an unexpected proposition: Muhsfeldt offered to safeguard the girl following the rebellion’s suppression.

As the rebellion erupted, Crematorium IV was engulfed in flames, courtesy of the insurgents wielding smuggled explosives. In the ensuing chaos and gunfire, those Sonderkommando prisoners who managed to evade the initial explosions found themselves rounded up by their SS captors. Held in a precarious state as the crematorium’s blaze raged on, these prisoners faced a grim fate: execution. In this environment of ruthless finality, both Hoffman and fellow prisoner Rosenthal recognized that the young girl was not likely to escape the brutal outcome faced by her fellow captives.

After the massacre of all those detained, the girl found a fleeting opportunity to flee towards the camp’s main gate. However, the moment was tragically short-lived. With unwavering vigilance, Muhsfeldt leveled his pistol and delivered a fatal shot, extinguishing her desperate hopes for escape. The film concludes with a haunting voice-over from the deceased girl, whose heart-wrenching story stands as a poignant testament to the horrific events that have transpired within the camp’s brutal confines.