I had been seeking this movie for quite some time. I had been told by several outlets that the movie was no longer available. I looked it up on Amazon.com and was able to find the product. It was purchased and received in a very timely manner. The movie was what I had expected and I could not be more satisfied.

This is a tale set within the confines of the Auchswitz-Birkenau death camps. It is a tale of the depths that people are capable of sinking to to save a few weeks of life. The men of Sonderkommando 12 work in the selection and clothes changing areas. They lead people to the gas chambers under the pretext of disinfection. When the victims are all dead, they disentangle the corpses and search them for hidden jewelry--they cut the hair and they pull out the teeth. Afterwards, they work in the living Hell of the crematoria, incinerating bodies that are at least partly their personal victims.

There is a plot to destroy the crematoria coupled with a major prison break. Arms are smuggled in from Polish partisans. The Germans, who have informants everywhere, quickly learn of the plot but don't know how, where or what. Three women from a work detail in a munitions factory are discovered with powder--illicit explosives. They are ruthlessly tortured with electric shock but don't break. They are afterall going to die anyway. They have second thoughts, however, when the Nazis line up the women in their section and shoot them down, all the while asking the million dollar question. Half are murdered but no one talks.

The plot is almost foiled, howeve, when a prisoner discovers a still living girl under a pile of gassed people. He convinces others, including the camp doctor, to assist in her resuscitation and hiding. Trying to hide the girl places the whole operation at risk. The Commandant discovers her and, in exchange for her life, tries to bribe his brilliant Jewish doctor for more information about the plot. The doctor denies everything except, to say, that there is a plot. The Commandant isn't pleased.

The plot goes forward. Arms are seized and the main crematorium goes up in a series of explosions. Efforts to hold off the trained soldiers, brought in to repel the rebellion are largely hopeless. Many are killed outright and those who survive are systematically shot in the head. The young girl, who has survived so much, is shot down by the Commandant.

This is a powerful, grim and gruesome story of one of the greatest wrongs in history--the systematic demolition of a people. It asks the very pertinent question: How far would you go to save your own life? Are you above collaboration and murder?

Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of America

This movie is very moving, it is slow at times, but the story is amazing and hard to believe that people would be treated like that. It is totally worth buying because you will want to watch it again. Each time I watch it I see something new, not only that,but is a good historical movie to show youth about WW2. My lil bro and his friends couldn't believe that this is what happened to Jews during WW2. It is definetly a good movie.

One of the hardest things to understand about the Shoah was how so many people "just walked" into the gas chambers. Harder still is to understand why people chose to help out the Germans. When you watch how the people coming off the trains were treated, you ask yourself why didn't they rebel. Well part of the reason was that they were told by their own that they were going in for showers. Why would you fight against that?

What if there were no SonderKommandos? Would the Germans not have hired other people (Poles and Balts) who would have been happy to do the work just like they did in the Eastern Camps? Would these 'others' have treated those going to the 'chambers' any better or worse? If you were there, what would you do to stay alive, even if for only four more months?

What doesn't show is the years of humiliation, like a woman who have suffered years of abuse by her husband. That is what these people were like when they came into the Jagers. They had first been stripped of all their rights and then spent years in forced ghettos living like convicts.

One thing that was missing from the movie is the condition of the people when they go out of the 'cars'. Most had been in them at least for forty -eight hours, with no food or water and one bucket for urine and feces. There may have been up to 120 people in a car that could fit maybe sixty. Many were forced to stand for the whole trip. Some would have died enroute and there was no way to get rid of the bodies. When the cars were opened the people inside were so traumatized that they were like robots. Some had even gone insane while locked up and the rest would have had to endure their screaming and ranting during the trip.

It's hard to imaging what these people endured before they were gassed. In many cases, as they left the cars, anyone who complained were shot on the spot. These were normal, law abiding people, how would you reach if someone shot the person next to you in the head, and their brains and blood were splattered all over you, having endured 48 hours or more stuffed in a cattle car?

This may seem raw, but was mild compared to the actual camps. The one part that was close was when they were shooting the woman, to get the other two woman to confess. The German in charge, took no notice of the screaming of the woman about to be shot or that they were not involved. To them all Jews were 'untermenschen' (underpeople) who would all be killed eventually. So did it matter if we did it now or later?

Zeb Kantrowitz

The Grey Zone This is simply a excellent movie based on a broadway play i believe.I purchased after seing only part of it on a hotel cable channel one night.I actually purchased it in VHS format which was all that was available.(at that time).I AM HABIRU,so perhaps the movie holds more of a subjective effect on my religious group.But like the movie"Braveheart" it should touch others not personally involved.But like BRAVEHEART it should have the same effect on all decent people who watch it.That is why it is an exellent movie.Strogly Reccomended.Not for the faint of heart.Not atear jerker.Just reality portrayed by the actors. MOST highly reccomended