Film: The World Will Tremble

So, I was in Ireland for the weekend - and at the time I'm flying these days, you get some lovely skies - landing there:

and taking off again:

..which was a bit touch and go, what with my taxi driver completely forgetting about me, and the reminder being on the phone he wasn't using.. happily, I made bag drop with (roughly) five minutes to spare..

For tonight, I decided on film - and what came up was The World Will Tremble, a fact-based drama about prisoners who actually managed to escape from the Nazis' first extermination camp, in Poland. Showing in the Curzon Bloomsbury - I had to leave work a smidgeon early, but what the hey. I booked earlier in the afternoon, to save time when I got there - but it didn't sell out - to be fair, it was on very early, wouldn't have been easy for everyone to get there in time.

I left it a bit late to get the bus - but hey, one was right along, and the driver seemed to be in just as much hurry to get there as I was! I got off at Holborn Station, and with a variety of buses I could take for the last stretch, it didn't take long at all, and I actually made it to the cinema on time! ..and then wanted to get wine, and chocolates.. manoeuvring my phone awkwardly, I was rather peeved to see that the Curzon app had no record of the very booking it had displayed before, but I'd dismissed the notification to bring up my membership code, for a discount on the aforementioned wine and chocolates! Happily, they had sent email confirmation - I do remember not getting that confirmation before, but that time, they had a record on the app. Well, as long as I get one scannable code..

And then the code didn't scan properly. But hey, I wasn't at all miffed that I had to wait while he typed in the associated numerical code. And then he grinned as he told me I was two floors down. So, down the stairs I went, precariously balancing wine and chocolates, and arrived just as the trailers were starting. And I do wish they'd bring in cup holders here - it can be awkward, trying to find space for everything..

Ah me, this is an intense film. With the Nazis speaking either in German or English, but with German accents, it does jar a bit that the Poles all have English accents - which would be because they're English actors. They speak in English as a rule, BTW. But from the very beginning, we're up close and personal with the mud, the grime, of the inmates forced to work in these conditions. When one breaks his shovel, he's told to use his hands instead. And that's not the half of what happens - we've seen so much of this before, of course, but it's disturbing to see it all piled together like this.

Now, this was the first death camp - and it's interesting, and apparently historically accurate, to see that they don't use the bath-houses as gas chambers, as we're used to from more advanced camps. No - they shoo the victims into a sealed van, close the door, and connect a hose from the exhaust to an opening designed for the purpose - then simply drive them to wherever they've decided to dump the bodies, the passengers being gassed to death along the way. Quite efficient in its own way, and something I hadn't heard of before. Anyone who happens not to be dead when they open the doors - is simply shot.

They are then buried, by Jewish inmates, in a mass grave - inmates who sometimes recognise the recently deceased they are burying. Inmates who sometimes find themselves burying their own families, still warm.. and I guess what always sticks in people's minds about these events is the sheer callousness of the Nazis, their seeming indifference to the constant misery and death they inflict on those around them. In that respect, I have to single out the camp commandant, who - obviously a man with a taste for the finer things - has engaged a Jewish violinist to play for him, regularly partakes of wine with the officers, and performs a smiling welcome speech for all the new arrivals, about how, after the suffering of the ghettos, their "suffering is over now". Well, quite.. oh, and I never previously noticed how there was a special sigil for SS officers working in the death camps - with a skull..

I won't go into everything that happens - but I came out of the film slightly shaking. Indeed, this section seems to go on and on, to the extent that I wondered whether they were going to get to an escape at all! That's assuming there was anyone left to escape, what with all the random deaths that occurred. But amazingly, a couple did, and this second part of the film is as exciting a prison break as you could hope for. And in the end, they got to someone who could record the events as told to him - and could smuggle out the report: to London, of course, where they were broadcast on good old BBC Radio.

Unstinting in its portrayal of the horrors of the camp, the film drills into us just what the prisoners are escaping, and just what they went through to get their story out. At the end, of course, we're told what happened to them, and to the rabbi who got the word out.. Only one of the two survived the war, and we see a reconstruction of his appearance in the court case against the camp staff. Particularly moving, however, are the interview with the real character on whom this film character is based, as an old man, and a brief clip of that original radio broadcast that's played over the credits. So, worth sticking around for those..

So yes, I was a bit shaken going to GBK, where I settled a bit. And of course, I keep forgetting that I can shop here, both GBK and the cinema being in the Brunswick Centre.. so handy..

Tomorrow - hey, London Literary Walks is back! This one is The Shakespeare Walk - we're meeting in Shaw's Booksellers - which is actually a pub, apparently disguised as a bookshop.. Now, I couldn't find mention of them selling food, so I'm heading to the nearby Cafe Rouge for dinner - it's years since I ate at one of them!

And on Thursday - heading to see Bernard Casey at the London Irish Centre! I became aware of him through Foil, Arms & Hog - will be very interested to see for myself what he's like, solo.