Escape from Sobibor

On 14 October 1943 the prisoners at the Sobibor extermination camp rose up and carried out the most successful camp escape of the Second World War. Jack Gold's television film recounts that day. Alan Arkin plays Leon Feldhendler, who assembled the plan, and Rutger Hauer plays Alexander Pechersky, a Soviet soldier brought into the camp whose military experience was what made the plan possible. Reginald Rose, who wrote Twelve Angry Men, wrote the teleplay. The sources include Richard Rashke's book, Shlomo Szmajzner's account and the writings of Thomas Blatt, who survived the camp and appears in the film as a character. When it aired on CBS on 10 May 1987 more than thirty-one million Americans watched. It won the Golden Globe for best television film, Hauer won for supporting actor, and Arkin was nominated. Who it is for: viewers interested in Holocaust history and accounts of resistance. Who it is not for: anyone who will find the budget limits of a television production too visible, or who struggles with depictions of camp violence.