The Grey Zone
Encyclopedia
The Grey Zone is a 2001 film directed by Tim Blake Nelson
and starring David Arquette
, Steve Buscemi
, Harvey Keitel
, Mira Sorvino
and Daniel Benzali
. It is based on the book Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account written by Dr. Miklós Nyiszli
.
The title comes from a chapter in the book The Drowned and the Saved by Holocaust survivor Primo Levi
. The film tells the story of the Jewish Sonderkommando
XII in the Auschwitz concentration camp
in October 1944. These prisoners were made to assist the camp's guards in shepherding their victims to the gas chamber
s and then disposing of their bodies in the ovens.
d, but they don't reveal the plot.
Meanwhile, a Hungarian-Jewish doctor, Miklós Nyiszli (Allan Corduner
), who works for the Nazi scientist Josef Mengele
in an experimental medical lab, has received permission from Mengele himself to visit his wife and daughter in the women’s labor camp
. Nyiszli is quite concerned about the safety of his family and believes that Mengele’s orders will keep them from the gas chambers.
A new trainload of Hungarian
Jewish prisoners arrives and all are immediately sent to the gas chambers. As the group is given instructions about "delousing," a fearful, angry man in the group begins shouting questions at one of the Sonderkommando, Hoffman (Arquette), who has been issuing the instructions. Hoffman beats him to death in an outburst of frustration, in an attempt to make the man stop talking. After the gassing of this same group, a badly shaken Hoffman finds a young girl alive beneath a pile of bodies. He removes her from the chamber, and, after informing the leader of the insurgency, Schlermer (Daniel Benzali
), takes her to a storage room and summons Nyiszli, who revives her. The group decides to hide her in the children’s camp. While the prisoners hide her in a dressing room, SS-Oberscharführer
Eric Muhsfeldt
(Keitel) suddenly walks in. Noticing that one of the prisoners present, Abramowics (Buscemi), is there illegally, he shoots him, prompting the girl to scream and to be discovered. Nyiszli then takes Muhsfeldt outside and tells him about the uprising, but cannot tell him where or when it will begin. Muhsfeldt agrees to protect the young girl after the uprising is suppressed.
The insurrection begins and Crematoria I and III are destroyed with the smuggled explosives. All the Sonderkommandos who survive the explosions and gunfights with the SS are captured. They are held until the fire in the crematorium is extinguished and executed shortly after. Hoffmann and a fellow prisoner, Rosenthal (David Chandler
), conclude that the girl will not be set free after she is forced to watch the executions. After all captives are shot, the girl is allowed to flee toward the main gate of the camp. Before she can run very far, Muhsfeldt draws his handgun and shoots her. The film closes with a voice-over recitation by the dead girl.
, Bulgaria
for the production of the film using the original architectural plans.
The film was first released on DVD on March 18, 2003. In 2008 it was released on DVD in the UK.
The film received the 2002 National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award.
Tim Blake Nelson
Tim Blake Nelson is an American director, writer, singer, and actor.-Early life:Nelson was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Ruth Kaiser Nelson, who is a noted social activist and philanthropist in Tulsa, and a geologist father...
and starring David Arquette
David Arquette
David Arquette is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, fashion designer, and occasional professional wrestler. A member of the Arquette acting family, he first became known during the mid 1990s after starring in several Hollywood films, such as the Scream series, Wild Bill and...
, Steve Buscemi
Steve Buscemi
Steven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi is an American actor, writer and film director. An associate member of the renowned experimental theater company The Wooster Group, Buscemi has starred and supported in successful Hollywood and indie films including New York Stories, Mystery Train, Reservoir Dogs,...
, Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel
Harvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The...
, Mira Sorvino
Mira Sorvino
Mira Katherine Sorvino is an American actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Mighty Aphrodite and is also known for her role as Romy White in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.- Early life :Sorvino was born in Tenafly, New Jersey...
and Daniel Benzali
Daniel Benzali
Daniel Benzali is a Brazilian-American stage, television and film actor.-Biography:Benzali was born in Rio de Janeiro to Brazilian Jewish parents...
. It is based on the book Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account written by Dr. Miklós Nyiszli
Miklos Nyiszli
Miklós Nyiszli was a Jewish prisoner at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Nyiszli, along with his wife and young daughter, were transported to Auschwitz in June 1944...
.
The title comes from a chapter in the book The Drowned and the Saved by Holocaust survivor Primo Levi
Primo Levi
Primo Michele Levi was an Italian Jewish chemist and writer. He was the author of two novels and several collections of short stories, essays, and poems, but is best known for If This Is a Man, his account of the year he spent as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland...
. The film tells the story of the Jewish Sonderkommando
Sonderkommando
Sonderkommandos were work units of Nazi death camp prisoners, 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...
XII in the Auschwitz concentration camp
Auschwitz concentration camp
Concentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
in October 1944. These prisoners were made to assist the camp's guards in shepherding their victims to the gas chamber
Gas chamber
A gas chamber is an apparatus for killing humans or animals with gas, consisting of a sealed chamber into which a poisonous or asphyxiant gas is introduced. The most commonly used poisonous agent is hydrogen cyanide; carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide have also been used...
s and then disposing of their bodies in the ovens.
Plot
The film opens in October 1944, in the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. A small group of Sonderkommandos are plotting an insurrection that, they hope, will destroy at least one of the camp's four crematoria and gas chambers. They are receiving firearms from Polish citizens in the nearby village and gunpowder from the UNIO munitions factory; the women prisoners who work in the UNIO are smuggling the powder to the men’s camp among the bodies of their dead workers. The women's activity is eventually discovered by the Germans, they are savagely tortureTorture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
d, but they don't reveal the plot.
Meanwhile, a Hungarian-Jewish doctor, Miklós Nyiszli (Allan Corduner
Allan Corduner
Allan Corduner is an English actor.-Early life:Corduner grew up in a secular Jewish home in North London with his mother, father and a younger brother. His mother had escaped to England from Nazi Germany with her family in 1938...
), who works for the Nazi scientist Josef Mengele
Josef Mengele
Josef Rudolf Mengele , also known as the Angel of Death was a German SS officer and a physician in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. He earned doctorates in anthropology from Munich University and in medicine from Frankfurt University...
in an experimental medical lab, has received permission from Mengele himself to visit his wife and daughter in the women’s labor camp
Labor camp
A labor camp is a simplified detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons...
. Nyiszli is quite concerned about the safety of his family and believes that Mengele’s orders will keep them from the gas chambers.
A new trainload of Hungarian
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
Jewish prisoners arrives and all are immediately sent to the gas chambers. As the group is given instructions about "delousing," a fearful, angry man in the group begins shouting questions at one of the Sonderkommando, Hoffman (Arquette), who has been issuing the instructions. Hoffman beats him to death in an outburst of frustration, in an attempt to make the man stop talking. After the gassing of this same group, a badly shaken Hoffman finds a young girl alive beneath a pile of bodies. He removes her from the chamber, and, after informing the leader of the insurgency, Schlermer (Daniel Benzali
Daniel Benzali
Daniel Benzali is a Brazilian-American stage, television and film actor.-Biography:Benzali was born in Rio de Janeiro to Brazilian Jewish parents...
), takes her to a storage room and summons Nyiszli, who revives her. The group decides to hide her in the children’s camp. While the prisoners hide her in a dressing room, SS-Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer
Oberscharführer was a Nazi Party paramilitary rank that existed between the years of 1932 and 1945. Translated as “Senior Squad Leader”, Oberscharführer was first used as a rank of the Sturmabteilung and was created due to an expansion of the enlisted positions required by growing SA membership...
Eric Muhsfeldt
Eric Muhsfeldt
SS-Oberscharführer Eric Mußfeldt was a senior NCO of the Sonderkommando at the Auschwitz concentration camp.-Personal life:...
(Keitel) suddenly walks in. Noticing that one of the prisoners present, Abramowics (Buscemi), is there illegally, he shoots him, prompting the girl to scream and to be discovered. Nyiszli then takes Muhsfeldt outside and tells him about the uprising, but cannot tell him where or when it will begin. Muhsfeldt agrees to protect the young girl after the uprising is suppressed.
The insurrection begins and Crematoria I and III are destroyed with the smuggled explosives. All the Sonderkommandos who survive the explosions and gunfights with the SS are captured. They are held until the fire in the crematorium is extinguished and executed shortly after. Hoffmann and a fellow prisoner, Rosenthal (David Chandler
David Chandler
David Chandler may refer to:* David Chandler , American physical chemist* David G. Chandler, British historian specializing in Napoleonic history* David P. Chandler, American historian specializing in Cambodian history...
), conclude that the girl will not be set free after she is forced to watch the executions. After all captives are shot, the girl is allowed to flee toward the main gate of the camp. Before she can run very far, Muhsfeldt draws his handgun and shoots her. The film closes with a voice-over recitation by the dead girl.
Cast
- David ArquetteDavid ArquetteDavid Arquette is an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, fashion designer, and occasional professional wrestler. A member of the Arquette acting family, he first became known during the mid 1990s after starring in several Hollywood films, such as the Scream series, Wild Bill and...
as Hoffman - Steve BuscemiSteve BuscemiSteven Vincent "Steve" Buscemi is an American actor, writer and film director. An associate member of the renowned experimental theater company The Wooster Group, Buscemi has starred and supported in successful Hollywood and indie films including New York Stories, Mystery Train, Reservoir Dogs,...
as "Hesch" Abramowics - David ChandlerDavid ChandlerDavid Chandler may refer to:* David Chandler , American physical chemist* David G. Chandler, British historian specializing in Napoleonic history* David P. Chandler, American historian specializing in Cambodian history...
as Rosenthal - Allan CordunerAllan CordunerAllan Corduner is an English actor.-Early life:Corduner grew up in a secular Jewish home in North London with his mother, father and a younger brother. His mother had escaped to England from Nazi Germany with her family in 1938...
as Dr. Miklós NyiszliMiklos NyiszliMiklós Nyiszli was a Jewish prisoner at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Nyiszli, along with his wife and young daughter, were transported to Auschwitz in June 1944... - Daniel BenzaliDaniel BenzaliDaniel Benzali is a Brazilian-American stage, television and film actor.-Biography:Benzali was born in Rio de Janeiro to Brazilian Jewish parents...
as Schlermer - Mira SorvinoMira SorvinoMira Katherine Sorvino is an American actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Mighty Aphrodite and is also known for her role as Romy White in Romy and Michele's High School Reunion.- Early life :Sorvino was born in Tenafly, New Jersey...
as Dina - Natasha LyonneNatasha Lyonne-Early life:Lyonne was born Natasha Braunstein in Manhattan, New York City, the daughter of Yvette Lyonne, a product licensing consultant, and Aaron Braunstein, a native of Brooklyn who worked as a boxing promoter. Lyonne grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household...
as Rosa - Michael StuhlbargMichael StuhlbargMichael S. Stuhlbarg is an American theatre, film and television actor.-Life and career:Stuhlbarg was born in Long Beach, California and raised in Reform Judaism. He trained at Juilliard School and also studied acting at the National Youth Theatre of Great Britain, University of London and UCLA...
as Cohen - Harvey KeitelHarvey KeitelHarvey Keitel is an American actor. Some of his most notable starring roles were in Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, Ridley Scott's The Duellists and Thelma and Louise, Ettore Scola's That Night in Varennes, Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Jane Campion's The...
as SS-Oberscharführer Eric MuhsfeldtEric MuhsfeldtSS-Oberscharführer Eric Mußfeldt was a senior NCO of the Sonderkommando at the Auschwitz concentration camp.-Personal life:... - Kamelia Grigorova as the Girl
- Velizar Binev as SS-Oberscharführer Otto MollOtto MollOtto Moll was an SS-Hauptscharführer and part of the staff at Auschwitz. Born in Hohenschonberg, Germany on March 4, 1915 and was executed on May 28, 1946 in Landsberg am Lech....
- Lee WilkofLee WilkofLee Wilkof is an American actor and veteran of the Broadway stage. He originated the roles of Sam Byck in Assassins and Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors, later earning a Tony Award nomination for the 2000 revival of Kiss Me, Kate...
as Man With Watch
Production and release
The film was based upon Nelson's own play adapted from Nyiszli's book. A 90 percent scale "model" of the Birkenau camp was built near SofiaSofia
Sofia is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria and the 12th largest city in the European Union with a population of 1.27 million people. It is located in western Bulgaria, at the foot of Mount Vitosha and approximately at the centre of the Balkan Peninsula.Prehistoric settlements were excavated...
, Bulgaria
Bulgaria
Bulgaria , officially the Republic of Bulgaria , is a parliamentary democracy within a unitary constitutional republic in Southeast Europe. The country borders Romania to the north, Serbia and Macedonia to the west, Greece and Turkey to the south, as well as the Black Sea to the east...
for the production of the film using the original architectural plans.
The film was first released on DVD on March 18, 2003. In 2008 it was released on DVD in the UK.
The film received the 2002 National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award.