"Firstly i was suprised to know that the jews imprisoned in Sobibor "made love" as a character commented (sorry i cannot remember his name - his wife and son were killed). Did this really occur in an extermination camp between inmates?"
I think that they had to have some distraction from the terrible things they saw. (That is also said in the film). But, indeed, it's quite strange that the commanders allowed it...
"And secondly were those Jews kept to work in sobibor allowed to wear ordinary clothes instead of camp uniforms? Or do they wear these later on in the movie?"
From what I understand, the Jews kept to work were treated not as bad as in, for example, Bergen-Belsen, because they were needed. In Bergen-Belsen, there were thousands of people, and they also had work, but their work could be quite easily replaced. Now, in Sobibor, there were just some sewers, one shoemaker(right?) and not really work that could be easily replaced by someone else. I think the commanders had to treat them not terribly bad, because they were needed. But on the other hand, they did kill 26 people... But that was because they tried to escape, right?
I'm confused xD
~It's a kind of magic...~
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little_miss_grim
19 years ago
Thanks, i think i understand now! Thankyou very much.
*Scott Mechlowicz and Ryan Kelley Rule*
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Beanie76
16 years ago
Don't think I agree that the Jews kept in the death camps to work were treated better than in Belsen because the Belsen Jews could be easily replaced. If anything it was the other way around. The Jews in Belsen were mainly affluent western-European (i.e. no slavs!) Jews from France, Holland, Germany etc who the Nazis planned to use as "bargaining chips" with the Allies, and as a consequence the Jews in Bergen-Belsen were actually treated better than most of their compatriots. In fact, they were so prized that some were excused work and those who did work were not subject to the same conditions and working hours as others, they were well fed and lived in relatively spacious conditions (not that I'm saying life in a KZ was ever a picnic though!).
It was only once the SS started clearing the camps in the east with the onrush of the Red Army and moving the prisoners deeper and deeper into Germany that the camp started to become overcrowded and typhus became rampant. This is the Belsen that was surrendered to the British and we remember from the film reels. Anne Frank herself was a prisoner at Auschwitz until she was evacuated to the west and ended up in Belsen, where she unfortunately died of typhus, and many former Auschwitz guards and officials were arrested at Bergen-Belsen, including Irma Grese and the "Beast of Belsen" Josef Kramer (who was at one time assistant to Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz).
In the death camps however the relative worth of the prisoners who were selected to work (and live) was much reduced. These people would typically work in the Sonderkommando detail for a period of about 3 months before they were themselves gassed and their ranks replenished from the incoming transports (the Nazis thought this would prevent organised resistance from forming - they were wrong). They were effectively dead men walking and treated as such.
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