REBELLION IN TREBLINKA
(Screenplay content – in short)
A group of young people, kept alive to clean up the corpses and belongings of gassed Jews, reach an agreement under the most dangerous conditions and, after a number of unsuccessful attempts, finally carry out a plan to kill part of the German crew, burn down the extermination camp and escape.
Among the more important participants in the conspiracy is a former Czech captain who got there by accompanying his Jewish wife on an alleged "resettlement to the east" for "colonization".
Other conspirators:
The initiator of the escape plan, the fiery heart of the Jewish crew, Dr. Chorążycki, who manages to commit suicide when caught with money intended for the purchase of weapons; the Locksmith, who cunningly manages to make a key to the German crew's arsenal; the 15-year-old boy who steals grenades from the arsenal, has to bring them back when they turn out to have no fuses, until he finally supplies the conspirators with usable weapons; the Disinfector, who on a critical day sprays the barracks walls with a flammable liquid instead of carbolic acid; the man of the people, the shoemaker Tanchum, who lures them into his workshop and, at the decisive moment, kills the SS man on duty, losing his own life in the process. Wiernik, a carpenter, who, during the construction of a new barracks, establishes and then, using various tricks, maintains constant communication between Camp I, where transports are received, the condemned are undressed, and the belongings of gassed Jews are sorted, packed and sent to Germany, and Camp II, where the gassing and burial, and then the removal and burning of the bodies of murdered Jews take place.
The film will only show Camp I. The macabre reality of Camp II will be presented only as the subject of allusions, horror, and secret conversations between prisoners of Camp I.
Enemies in the foreground:
The camp's deputy commandant, a polished athlete, and an utterly cruel murderer and sadist, Franz, nicknamed "The Doll." The Jewish spy Kuba, the workshop director, a cross between a pederast and a sadist, and the teacher Zwetschke.
The backdrop depicts life in the barracks, workshops, and German and Ukrainian camps. The grounds include an idyllic, angelic flower garden, meticulously tended animals, and a Jewish orchestra composed of first-rate musicians from Warsaw's café orchestras, which provides musical accompaniment.
Supporting characters:
A young, pious Jew who prays Kaddish for the murdered every evening with others and sings Eil Mole Rachmin with a beautiful voice, to which the murderers listen with lyrical and musical delight. To allow them to savor this pleasure, they gave him the nominal office of kapo and kept him alive for a long time. The Jews call him Meir Kapo. Several German figures appear in the background, whom the Jews have given various nicknames, such as "Berish," "Kiwe," "Frankenstein," and so on.
x) It could possibly be a representative of another nation. In fact, two Czechs participated in the Treblinka conspiracy: Captain Zieło Bloch, of Jewish descent, and a native Czech whom Treblinka prisoners call Masaryk. He died, after a successful escape, only in 1944 as a result of denunciation. Whether his name was actually Massaryk, or whether his comrades gave him that nickname, is difficult to verify. He was supposedly from the family of President Massaryk.
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Subsequent phases and plot twists:
The germination of a collective plan, preceded by two individual attacks. A young Jew from the transport, not allowed to say goodbye to his mother, attacks a Ukrainian with a penknife. A worker among the Jewish crew stabs an SS soldier to death during a selection. The German crew falls into panic and fear.
Dr. Chorążycki recruits the first participants in the conspiracy and stumbles upon a parallel thread of understanding. Both sides fear each other's provocations until they finally unite. The one they initially most closely monitor and suspect, accusing him of collusion with the German command – the Jewish camp director, Engineer Galewski – later becomes the main force, the most powerful mind, and the most powerful personality in the conspiracy. If there were to be a central character in the projected drama, it would be Engineer Galewski.
After Dr. Chorążycki's suicide, Galewski enlists the aid of a Czech captain and creates a sort of headquarters with whom he holds secret meetings. They set a date for the uprising; everything is prepared down to the smallest detail. The initiated await a signal, which is not given because the weapons prove unusable. Suicides occur among the participants, broken by the futile tension. Stasis, despair. Galewski does not give up, trying to keep the spirits of his comrades up. After a long break, a new transport arrives from Warsaw. News of fighting in the ghetto, brought by the few survivors, infuses the underground movement in the camp with new energy. New preparations, a new deadline. At the last minute, one link fails, and changes have to be made, bringing forward the moment of explosion by an hour. The fear is that this will result in everything falling apart. But the first German bodies have already been laid in the workshops; there is no turning back. These are three signal shots in Camp I. Will they be heard in Camp II? Will they understand? Deadly tension and—suddenly—flames from all sides. The inhuman shrieks of the crew and prisoners. The clamor of a short battle. The Jews are acquiring new weapons from the executioners, using their work tools – axes and shovels. They have cut the telephone connections, lured them downs with gold, and killed them. They have placed the Ukrainian machine gun crew on the roof of the main guardhouse, but they know all too well that their advantage may last only minutes. They must cut the barbed wire, destroy what they can, and escape... Half die in the fighting on the spot, but several hundred prisoners get past the barbed wire, disperse in groups, and run ahead into the fields, into the forest...
Some people sit down for a moment, looking out at the green, beautiful world. They have won freedom. Will they enjoy it for long?
Episodes:
Preparations for Himmler's arrival for inspection. A group of beautiful, young women were being prepared for his arrival, on whom the Reichsführer would be shown the gassing process from start to finish. One of them, disguised as a man, managed to slip into the line of workers. At great risk, the Jews smuggled her to the workshops and then to the laundry. She also survived to see the outbreak of the revolt.
The escape of the man underneath the clothes.
A naked man who managed to escape beyond the barbed wire.
A young boy from the liquidated group of workers, who crawls out wounded at night from under a pile of corpses, having obtained clothes, wanders around in search of water to clean his wound and, recognized by his wound as a "deserter" from the mass grave, is again led to the shooting with the order: "undress"!
The “Tarnungskommando,” returning from the forest, carrying branches to camouflage the camp, encounters on the way a group of Poles led by a priest, with their hands behind their backs, who are about to be shot.
A tiny, living infant, pulled from a transport of people who had suffocated in the train cars by a Jew tasked with clearing away the bodies. Carefully placed aside in its pillow, it comes to, whimpering pitifully and alone.
These and other episodes are available to choose from and are designed so as not to interrupt the action.
The commander of the Treblinka underground, Engineer Galewski, who was able to overwhelm even the Germans with his sheer force of will and his outstanding individuality, having completed his incredibly difficult task, achieved his goal, and regained relative freedom, breaks down at the first new danger. Seeing the Germans approaching his group from afar, he commits suicide.
It turns out that they are partisans disguised as Germans who, after burying Galewski, take with them the rest of his surviving comrades to continue fighting against the Germans.
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This is where the film begins. With the image of an escape, equipped with all the necessary means, and the attack pressing in from all sides. Police, the gendarmerie, auxiliary units, SS relay, and a number of peasants, enticed by the hope of plunder and the promise of reward. We see individual escapees and entire groups rushing in. We also see a peasant tending to a wounded Jew, feeding him, shaving him, giving him a clean shirt, and showing him a place to hide.
A detachment of partisans with Galewski's closest companions arrives at their base. After rest and a meal, the Czech captain, camped in the forest, begins to recount the above-summarized course of action.
By framing the action within the memories of a Czech Treblinka prisoner, greater distance and perspective are achieved. A certain necessary softening of the horrors of the extermination camp is achieved. The flashback allows for a doubly attenuated and, as it were, duplication of the horrific reality of what happened in Treblinka and other extermination camps. First, because these are the memories of a survivor, and second, because the narrator is not a Jew.
However, this tale of a terrible time cannot be turned into a gentle fairy tale for adults. The monstrous action cannot be provided with even the shadow of a happy ending, which in reality was only a very rare exception, confirming the rule, which was, sooner or later, annihilation.
So the film ends where it began: with a raid.
A group camping in the forest is suddenly surrounded by Germans, unfortunately this time real ones. The narrator also dies, his only consolation being that he traded the ignominious death at Treblinka for a death with a weapon in his hand, having managed, before drawing his last breath, to kill one of the loathsome reptiles from the Treblinka garrison.
That German, too, who is mortally wounded, dies at the hands of his Jewish comrade, who closes the Czech man's eyes.
The fighting has shifted to the side. There are no longer any partisans or Germans nearby. The Jew looks around with primal fear at the world that has become a jungle. Then he grabs the dead man's gun, checks if it's loaded, and, having moved away from that spot, not knowing whether to move right or left, he races onward. Like a primitive man, like a hunted animal, across the wild expanses of the fields. He races on.
The screenplay is based on the true story of a successful revolt at the extermination camps in Treblinka and Sobibór. Also in Auschwitz, an organized revolt took place by the Jewish Sonderkommando, who were employed in operating the crematoria and clearing away the belongings of the murdered. Some of the names mentioned above are historical figures.
