Exodus from Auschwitz-Birkenau,Script by Michael Kokkinaris

Exodus from Auschwitz-Birkenau,Script by Michael Kokkinaris

Exodus(from Auschwitz-Birkenau)depicts a story that has never before been told cinematically—that of the Sonderkommando uprising at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, in which 135 Sephardic Jewish prisoners from Salonica, Greece plotted to overthrow the SS and blow up the camp’s crematoria.

The Sonderkommando were camp prisoners who were forced to aid their Nazi tormentors in the process of killing fellow prisoners.

The Sonderkommando revolt was a shining moment in Jewish history and the time is ripe to alert the world as to who these people are, why their history is so unique and important and why their dead must be remembered and their living must thrive.

Exodus depicts one of the most heroic pages of humankind history.

"EXODUS”                                from Birkenau                                               SYNOPSIS                                                                                WRITTEN BY                                                  MICHAEL KOKKINARIS NEW YORK CITY, February 1962 Midnight. An ambulance speeds through the wet streets of New York. The rain has stopped a while ago.  TWO GREY BUICKS with Feds follow suit. The SALVATION HOSPITAL neon sign looms in the background. Sleeping at his home , LEON CANETTI, wakes up from an emergency call. He is considered one of the world’s top thoracologists-oncologists. Duty calls at the Salvation Hospital. CANETTI drives his dark CADILLAC to the SALVATION HOSPITAL. CAR RADIO NEWS SOURCE: Cuban missile crisis. . He’s a tall, handsome man, in his mid-forties. Federal agent ANDREW MALOY keeps the patient under his watchful eye. CANETTI has to operate on a MYSTERY MAN, in his late sixties.  The real identity of the man is kept secret by the Feds who accompany him.  He’s named “JOE WALLACE” for the hospital records.  “WALLACE” wakes up. The blurry, out-of-focus image of the man standing over him with a stethoscope clears out. CANETTI prepares to perform  pleximetry on the chest of  the patient. “WALLACE” recognizes CANETTI from the eight digit  number on his arm. (Between excitation and repression “WALLACE”  nods “NO! This is…not… happening…” )  SAUBLER complains to MALOY (“This Jew is gonna save my life? Are you nuts?” “Calm down! Canetti is the top thoracologist-onclogist in America…” “What was the name again?” “Leon Canetti.” “I may know him.” “Relax, Mr. Wallace. You are in good hands”. “Is there any other hospital we can go?” “There’s no such an option”. “ I don’t want this Jew  to operate on me. He’s going to kill me”. “Your tumor can’t wait”)… “JOE WALLACE” is a former SS officer, who terminated thousands of Jewish prisoners through the gas chambers. His real name is Dr. HERMAN SAUBLER. SAUBLER collaborates now with the US government on chemical warfare.  His “specialty”: neuroparalytic gas. The Feds have to keep him alive. Salvation Hospital amphitheater:  CANETTI talks to students of medicine…(“ There is an unusually  large mediastinal tumor that can cause congestive heart failure…”) Under the MUSIC of Wagnerian opera (TANHAUSER) CANETTI has to operate on his former tormentor. CANETTI makes  a stab incision, approximately 10 mm long. When the lancet starts cutting down SAUBLER’s skin  we see a tiny blood stream developing. The blood stream grows bigger. Gradually, the blood erupting  takes the shape of the harrowing Nazi officer’s physiognomy. When CANETTI operates on the vital organs of the SAUBLER we see FLASH CUTS of the haunting images from the Holocaust. SOUND: ( YOUNG “WALLACE’S” VOICE: “Ober Vaffen SS, Herman Saubler”). The voice grows stronger. There’s disciplined applause from the military audience. HERMAN SAUBLER, CANETTI’s tormentor in Bircenau. CANETTI looks like he’s electrocuted. The haunting memories are returning. Snowflakes  falls over the concentration camp. SS soldiers are pulling out their guns outside of a remote building. SAUBLER supervises in a small remote building the use of CYCLON B. There are three suitcases where the prisoners are putting their coins, gold, money jewelery in the first one, cigarette and matches in the second, birth certificates, passports, documents in the third. New arrivals are told to strip naked to take a shower. They die a horrible death with cyclotone spasms.  SAUBLER, is the first to enter the gas chamber wearing a gas mask and dressed like a death figure from chemical warfare takes out the vital organs of a young Jewish man. When he exits, he instructs LEON to wash out and disinfect his gas chamber suit and then deliver it to an appointed SOLDIER.  LEON is obliged from the SOLDIER to wipe out the equipment used by SAUBLER with his own clothes. Then naked in the snow  washes out his own clothes carefully in a hole with murky water and has to wear them back immediately…He’s walking soaked wet, freezing when MONICE, the “sauna rat”, gets him by the hand to the SAUNA to dry out his clothes. If he catches pneumonia the Germans will execute him the next day. No questions asked. (“Thank you, Moyses. You saved my life”. “My friends call me Monice. Next time I’ll see you around be dry, my friend!”) INTERCUT TO: The facade of a grey industrial building. (“Ober Vaffen SS, Herman Saubler”). A meeting of Nazi “medical”  officers takes place. SAUBLER  finishes his speech. There’s applause from the audience. ANGLE ON: While exiting EACH OFFICER takes a small metal suitcase. SAUBLER greets them personally one-by-one SAUBLER’s military jeep is driving through Mittelstrasse through legions of exhausted termination camp “workers”. Mass-murderer SAUBLER is powerful, and confident. He rules the planet. The jeep passes through BIRCENAU’s heavy iron gate. The words  «Work liberates» are carved in the arch of the German heavy iron door ...   IMAGES of the table operation performed on SAUBLER are INTERCUT with shots from the gas chambers, crematoria, the skeletons wandering around the termination camps. Archival footage: a Nazi youth parade, piles of bones, clothes, gold teeth, furs, discovered from the allied forces... INTERCUTTING/DIFFERENT ANGLES from the riot in Bircenau, fires burning, explosions, machine guns rattling, dogs barking, screams of pain, blood spurting. INSERT/ MONITOR SCREEN THE CARDIODIAGRAM/”WALLACE’S” heart pace changes. So does CANETTI’s heartbeat (SOUND). LEON knocks his head on the woods of his office unable to cope with his anger, his guilt, his pathetic attitude. He has taken Hippocrates oath to help all the people in need, but the man he operated is a mass murderer who killed all his friends, relatives and compatriots.  MONICE tries to calm him down. FLASH BACK TO BIRCENAU TERMINATION CAMP CANETTI is wearing the striped uniform with the star of David. Walks through a corridor of the “hospital” with a folder in his hands. He slows down. Aligns his body with  A JEWISH WOMAN-her head shaven, looks frail- who’s mopping the floor. She raises her beautiful green eyes—DÉJÀ VU/SAME EYES like MARION DEMETRIADES--from the floor and hands him a folded hankerchief. CANETTI pretends that he dropped something. With the speed of a magician, he puts the handkerchief into his pocket. (ESTHER NACHMIA: ”Learn if they are alive.” Then she whispers: “Do it!” and goes back mopping the floor). CANETTI walks over to the CANADA building showing to the German soldiers his pass. A “selection” of Jewish women (red bands on their heads) takes place. CUT TO SALVATION HOSPITAL : HERMAN HAUSER, World War II veteran, and general manager of the Salvation Hospital, introduces to CANETTI a European woman, MARION, a doctor trainee, in her early thirties, who just arrived from Paris. Her hair is combed back, her gaze friendly. CANETTI asks MARION where she’s coming from. (“I grew up in Paris. I was born in Thessaloniki. It’s a big city up in Northern Greece--”) CANETTI says: “--I know where it is…” The hospital manager asks CANETTI if he feels OK. CANETTI murmurs: “ I was there. How could I ever forget?”… CUT TO: Title card superimposed: THESSALONIKI, GREECE, Saturday July 7, 1942. THE SOUND OF A NAZI OFFICER SHOUTING COMMANDS IN GERMAN. collected jewelry, antiques, cash and anything else of value and supposedly loaded the treasure onto a fishing boat that sank The sun high, blazing. A tree-lined street with bombed-out buildings and rubble. Liberty Square . The downtown centre of Thessaloniki. All Jewish men from 18-45 years are obliged to participate in this cruel wake-up call. Nine thousand men are held at gun-point under the hot sun. Hands on heads. Notorious Nazi Dr. MAX MERTEN, Hitler-appointed “governor” of Thessaloniki and the North Aegean, is present, supervising the “operation”. MERTEN is greedy  and sadistic. Five   German personnel carriers, an open car carrying officers, three motorcycles and a sidecar roar are parked down the narrow street. German soldiers train a field gun on the young Jewish men. A German tank has also brought its gun to bear on the men. German soldiers oblige the soon-to-be prisoners to do ridiculous exercises: to crawl out like snakes in the dust, to roll over like barrels in the rhythm of military drums. The German soldiers are humiliating the men. Cursing. Spitting on them. Those who pass out are being splashed with cold water. Those who drop dead, are being taken away by the Red Cross.  Collaborators of the Nazi occupation army, German soldiers, men of the SS, are abusing to death these young martyrs. Lethal blows in the head are terminating those who are disobedient or performing well below expectations.             CLOSE UP of A YOUNG JEW, around 22, looks like a student, an intellectual. The soldier asks him  his name: LEON CANETTI. The German soldier waves at him for documentation. CLOSE ON: The identity reads: LEON CANETTI. A few men are singled out of the maze of people pointed out by the Nazi collaborators: . ANRY NACHMIA CAPONE. JOSEPH BAROUCH. JACOB BRUDO. MOYSES (MONICE) SELOMO (a 15 year-old boy). A civilian, local Nazi collaborator and informant, points out to a handsome man with impressive features. A cigarette in his mouth . TWO SOLDIERS are bringing him to their sergeant. A GERMAN SOLDIER smacks him in the face. The man spells out his name, managing not to lose the cigarette out of his mouth: “ALEKOS ALEXANDRIDIS/ARI MEIR”. He  remains calm in the face of the storm. A GERMAN SOLDIER crushes his cigarette butt down on the sidewalk. They throw him like a sack of potatoes to the maze of the of the GreekJewish prisoners. The man loses his balance for a few seconds. He doesn’t fall down. Keeps on smiling. Fearless. (A YOUNG WOMAN asks in Greek:”Where are you taking them?” The SS officer  turns his pistol on the YOUNG  WOMAN and shoots her through the head (“To Hell!”). He marches off while she lies on the ground with blood spurting out of her). BEGINNING TITLES SEQUENCE: We see BLACK-AND-WHITE FOOTAGE archival footage from the Nazi movement coming to power in Germany (10 year-old kids are putting Hitler’s flag on a mountaintop). Executions in cold blood of the Jewish population, vandalisms in synagogues and bookstores, a World War II map with the abducted and terminated Jewish population  per country, selected shots from the  Leni Riefenstahl film, Hitler examines his death squads, the German youth, the pogrom, the Krystalnacht. THE SOUND OF A COUPLE OF PHRASES from the German kid song  «Hänschen klein» are mixed down with Sephardic instrumental “SKOTCHNA HONGA”.  ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE images are intercut with our own. The Jewish population of Thessaloniki is transported against his will to Bircenau. CUT TO SALVATION HOSPITAL: LEON, MONICE and MARION(NATALIE) are examining SAUBLER…He’s going to live. SAUBLER asks MALOY to leave the hospital. LEON asks MALOY to tell SAUBLER that he can move out anytime he chooses. As a confrontation builds up MALOY tries to calm them down. Then the medical team has to pay a visit to ARI, a Holocaust survivor, who has attempted a few days ago to reach SAUBLER’s room and kill him. But he’s stopped by FBI agents. ARI MEIR, a Holocaust survivor, terminally ill with lung cancer, confesses to MARION that he knows her real name. (“You’re very beautiful, Natalie. It’s a pity we met that late”. “It’s never too late, Ari”. “For me it was always late. Believe me…”) FLASH BACK: RED ARMY soldiers are  liberating Bircenau. Skeletons lying on the ground. Death and decay.  Through a hole in the ground ARI comes out, a walking skeleton himself, trembling and asking a surprised Russian soldier for a cigarette. The soldier  gives him a cigarette and lights up the fire for him. ARI  inhales the smoke down to his lungs. Coughs. Smokes awkwardly. Then collapses.              Back to present time where ARI gives MARION a notebook, his personal diary. (“Keep it, Natalie! I want you to keep it. The world must know” ) ANOTHER ANGLE: LEON is standing at the door. NATALIE turns and looks at him. IN HER OFFICE DESK: NATALIE opens  ARI’s diary. Page one. There’s a dedication: “For those unfortunate souls who didn’t return to Thessaloniki, the Mother of Israel "ir v’em beyisral,"”. FLASH BACK TO BIRCENAU: ANGLE ON: Trains overfilled with women and children. Among them A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN WITH GREEN EYES, ESTHER NACHMIA. Her eyes search through the back of the cattle rail car where people are piled up like animals going for slaughter. Her gaze full of agony. HANDHELD CAMERA PANS from ONE FACE TO THE OTHER, there are so many of them, but she can’t see the man and her boy she’s looking for. The place is packed to suffocation. People calling out names, trying to find each other. The wailing of women and the cries of children. ANOTHER ANGLE: They exit the cars. A great moving mass of humanity. AUSCHWITZ II (Birkenau) Dogs barking, sadistic totalitarian voices are screaming orders in German. THE SOUND OF whistles hissing danger. The flagellation of the disobedient. The arrival of the trains. The Jewish prisoners come out tired, hungry, scared and exhausted. CAMERA POV/ We pass the gate of the camp (the inscription on the iron door of the Auschwitz-Work liberates). The selection. The tattoo-marked arms. The haircuts. The bunkers. LEON is standing in line with other prisoners. He looks down to the ground. Desperate. The German SS officer stops right in front of YOUNG LEON. He is forced to lift his head. The German is impressed by the symmetrical proportions of the Leon. When he’s asked about his vocation  LEON simply states that he is a student of medicine in the fourth year. LEON will be detained in the Bircenau hospital, suffering an incredible humiliation from the SS doctor Colonel SAUBLER, under the sound of  Wagnerian epic music from a gramophone. CUT TO: NEW YORK, FIFTH AVENUE SYNAGOGUE (EAST 62 STREET) The Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) takes place. Rabbi’s voice in Hebrew. (“MIZMOR L’DAVID”/ENGLISH SUBS). THE TWENTY THIRD PSALM OF DAVID Psalm 23 A psalm of David.  1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.  2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,        he leads me beside quiet waters,  3 he restores my soul.        He guides me in paths of righteousness        for his name's sake.  4 Even though I walk        through the valley of the shadow of death, [a]        I will fear no evil,        for you are with me;        your rod and your staff,        they comfort me. (…)  MONICE is attending. Much to his surprise MARION is sitted right across him. MARION reveals to surprised MONICE that her real name is NATALIE NACHMIA. MONICE says that LEON never attends. LEON and NATALIE fall in love with each other. FLASH BACK: Pandemonium. Chaos. People rushing in all directions, many carrying clothes, boxes, books. Shouting, calling. THE SOUND OF bombing continuous. VICTOR DEMETRIADES, a Greek neighbor, ANRY NACHMIAS, MARION’s father, are trying to save NATALIE. Except DEMETRIADES  everybody else wears Star of David armbands. Forging documents for  Mr. Demetriades’ little girl that died a while ago in Paris they intend to save NATALIE under the name of deceased MARION DEMETRIADES. ELIE surrenders along with her mother ESTHER and 15 year-old brother JECKY  to the German soldiers knocking down on their doors. THE BASEMENT is the heart of darkness. ANRY starts pushing a particular set of shelves full of dishes and kitchenware. Slowly, the shelves move to reveal a secret compartment. Kisses and hugs her. («Go Natalie.».  «I love you, dad». «Go! We’ll be back. Soon, Natalie. Soon...I promise»). NATALIE enters the compartment. Her father suggests to wait 24 hours before she exits. She gets a blanket and water. Darkness fall. Nazi soldiers co-operating with local fascists are looting the NAHMIA house. NATALIE comes out of the back door taking a thousand precautions. THE SOUND OF distant burst of rifle fire. German soldiers at the corner of the street, next to a lorry full of furniture, carpets, rugs, mirrors, paintings are smoking and laughing. Somewhere, a cat mews. THE SOUND OF CATFIGHTING attracts their interest. NATALIE freezes. An intense catfighting erupts on a roof. The soldiers laugh. A black cat jumps off the roof. Then another cat follows speeding through the narrow street chasing the first one. The soldiers train their riffles on the  two cats. NATALIE stands in front of the main door of the Demetriades house and knocks three times. Her back on the door. Her eyes on the soldiers.  The door remains shut. Suddenly an arm grabs her and takes her in. A hand keeps her mouth sealed. Slowly, with a lot of precautions the door is closed not to attract the interest of the soldiers. Victor Dimitriadis takes kid Natalie from the hand. “Follow me, Natalie”. NATALIE joins the Demetriades family right across the street, taking the place of their little sick girl that died a while ago. THE SOUND OF DEMETRIADES VOICE FADES OUT and in present time we see NATALIE weeping, supporting her head with her hands. She closes ARI’s diary.  Goes at the glass window. It rains outside. It rains inside.  She can’t stop her tears.  A phone starts ringing. ESTHER was her mother. LEON feels guilty for ESTHER’s death. Unable to overcome the tragic incident for almost two decades now. LEON’s weird behavior forces  MARION  to start packing for Paris. LEON promises to explain to her when time comes. MARION is impatient. Presses him to reveal the truth. There’s a selection for SONDERKOMMANDO. The rest of the them are being terminated with CYCLON gas. ESTHER Nahmia makes it. The CAPO instructs her to sweep clean the floors of the hospital. ARI also goes to SONDERKOMMANDO. CAPO along with THREE GERMAN SOLDIERS enters the bunkers. The prisoners are getting breakfast and clean clothes. Then they start working  at the furnaces that are always on. DEAD BODIES of WOMEN and CHILDREN are piling up awaiting cremation. A GIANT HOOK GRABS THREE BODIES: a SKINNY YOUNG MAN, A CHILD, AN ELDERLY WOMAN and throws them into the furnace fire. AN OLD SONDERKOMMANDO shows to the new arrivals their job. How to cut the hair, how to look for golden teeth. A HUNGARIAN MAN TOIBI  says he can’t stand the job. TOIBI is executed in cold blood from the CAPO. (“People don’t appreciate it when you give them an opportunity.”) JOSEPH BAROUCH moving with discipline around and keeping his mouth shut. ARI mimics him. The whole team does the same. TOIBI’s dead body is also  thrown to the furnace. JOSEPH BAROUCH and a Jewish man from Poland ROMAN are talking in the bunker about the Vistoula river. How deep it is. How long will it take to cross through the cold river in the heart of winter. IN the next selection among the bodies being prepared for the furnace JOSEPH BAROUCH discovers the dead body of his own mother. Mourning BAROUCH throws himself, unable to use the hook, the body of his mother to the furnace. The flames cause injuries to his hands.  LEON CANETTI supplies them with iodium through GIDEON the plumber who also works at the UNION/WERKE factory that makes powder, ammunition and dynamite for the Nazis. INTERCUT ARI’S DIARY with the personal diary of HERMAN SAUBLER: «Today Sunday, we had a wonderful meal. Tomato soup, half chicken with potatoes and red cabbage, pastry and an excellent vanilla ice cream. At 8 pm I participated in a special operation (SONDERAKTION) ». (SAUBLER) THE GAS CHAMBER. The ritual of death for young, old, men, women  (ARI). «6 women who had rebelled were killed by injection (KLEHR)». (SAUBLER) The termination with the use of injections in the chamber. (ARI). «In the evening, I had pleasant company in the hallway. For dinner Bulgarian red wine and slivovits from Croatia ». Dr. MENGELE’s experiments in Jewish twin children. His beloved seven dwarfs. (ARI). «During the night I attended an extraordinary undertaking that included 1,600 people from the Netherlands. This was the tenth special operation». THE GAS CHAMBER. The grueling process of SONDERKOMMANDO. The bunkers. «As a doctor I was present in the flogging of eight prisoners and their execution with small firearms (handguns)». EIGHT YOUNG AND HEALTHY JEWISH MEN  ARE EXECUTED POINT BLANK AFTER THEIR flagellation. * ( «Extraordinary or special company», was the name given by the SS with the execution by gas in the chambers of poisonous gas. The SS doctors were taking part in the selection of people to gas chambers and their implementation. The SS doctor pointed out the process of poisoning through a security hole that was at the door. The gas chamber door was opened only after the mandate of the physician when assured that all the victims had died. The poison (ZYKLON B, or CYCLON B) used for the murder, was transported by SS doctors and support staff in vehicles bearing the signal of the Red Cross). Near BUNKER 1 ARI and JOSEPH start scouting their escape. JOSEPH explains the plan to the attic of crematorium IV. The plan is called “GEHEIMNISTRAEGER” (“SECRET MESSENGER”).There’s a fence behind BUNKER III. Russian boxer DAVID ESTERCHAS says to JOSEPH:” At least we’ll die with dignity”. IN THE UNION WERKE FACTORY ELLA and ROSA, are hiding small quantities of powder carefully into their scarfs, so they can’t be discovered during the body search that follows the end of their shift in the factory. The supplies are delivered to GIDEON, the plumber. SONDERKOMMANDO men are getting them from GIDEON. JOSEPH BAROUCH is keeping notes about the guard, the double fence, targeting specifically. GIDEON talks to LEON about their plan to escape. They’ll be executed any way, sooner or later. AUGUST 15, 1944 JACQUES takes out of his mattress a self-made out of rag stripes  shirt that looks like the Greek flag. White stripes  and blue stripes have been stitche together. It looks like a shirt. ARI has a knife under his belt. The big day has started for SONDERKOMMANDO. The CAPO is getting suspicious. At the hospital LEON looks at the clock on the wall, while he’s taking care of his patients. The sudden arrival of Jews from Poland along with plenty of SS men makes. LEON is standing in front of SAUBLER’s office while the German is reading an order from the Auscwitz commander to him. BAROUCH is disappointed. The escape from Bircenau plan is postponed. SEPTEMBER 24, 1944 The UBER CAPPO reads the names of 500 members of the SONDERKOMMANDO who are moving to GLAIWITZ. Unfortunately they are going to be executed using the trains as gas chambers. The trains return to BIRCENAU full of dead bodies. ARI recognizes his Thessaloniki compatriots. LATER: Near the river were the ashes from the dead are thrown. ALBERTO ERRERA says that when the darkness falls he’ll try to escape.ALBERTO knocks down with a shovel the two German guards. Runs to the river. One bullet his him in the back. German dogs find him. German soildiers and the capo torture him scalp off his skin and throw him semi-conscious to the furnace. All Sonderkommando men are present. BAROUCH with ARI attempts a new riot without a plan (“Now or never!”). In parallel action Herman Hose commander of Auschwitz decides the termination of SONDERKOMMANDO and signs an order. BAROUCH and a few men are getting the guns from the German soldiers. BAROUCH orders ARI to cut off the fence. Self-made guns and dynamite are used.           AT THE AUSCHWITZ HEADQUARTERS OF COMMANDER RUDOLF FRANZ FERDINAND HOESS:   ANGLE ON THE GRAND STAIRCASE: An SS  Captain marches up the stairs purposefully, as if he's on urgent business Much activity: officers coming and going, orderlies typing. Officers try to reach other officers on field telephones. Desks, filing cabinets.. CAMERA ENTERS the private office of HOESS. The German Captain, carrying a bulging shoulder bag, marches into a room just off the hall and goes to HOESS office.  On the desk, there's a framed photograph of him with a woman and two children. HOESS glances at the papers at his in-tray, takes a pen, initials one or two and then goes. Then picks up the phone. At AUSCWITZ hundreds of soldiers are embarking on military personnel trucks.  German forces surrounding Bircenau positioning  themselves across the river. ARI tears apart a mattress, throws away his striped shirt and remembers the Greek flag that his dead friend  used to wear. A group of women working at the ‘Canada” building listens to the  anthem, which SOUNDS so weird like a song of the damned coming right off  the grave. KANETTI is taking care of his patient. He’s nervous. The Jewish doctor that supervises him orders him in Hebrew to remain at his position. When he hears the anthem he rushes off to the crematorium. A GROUP OF SONDERKOMMANDO MEN  puts dynamite in the foundation of the crematorium. There’s heavy gunfire exchange between the rioters and the German army. Guerilla tactics work temporarily for Barouch and his comrades. ANRY NAHMIAS gets depressed. He  climbs the barbed wire fence to escape, while he is in plain view of the tower guards. LEON notices and runs to sop him but it is too late as NAHMIAS is machine-gunned dead on the wire. BAROUCH gets shot in the chest and for a FROZEN MOMENT in time doesn’t fall like his whole existence is dedicated to light on the wick and the dynamite. BAROUCH falls dead. German army advances killing the rioters. ARI  with a cigarette lights on the fuse. FROM DIFFERENT ANGLES: The crematorium is blown up. Using a stolen Wehrmacht motorcycle DAVID, the Russian boxer, attempts to jump Bircenau’s barbed wire but his petrol tank is hit and becomes entangled in the wire. DIFFERENT ANGLES: He’s shot dead from the tower guards. ARI is running to the fence when the big explosion throws him on the ground. LEON tries to reach ARI to help him.  ARI is crawling to the sauna when a 15 year-old boy MONICE grabs him from the arm (YOUNG MONICE in Greek “You can hide here. Instructions later”). ARI covers himself up with mud. There are dogs barking , explosions, machine gun-rattling above the ground. An living hell above the ground. An inferno below the ground. There are hundreds of disfigured bodies scattered around the camp. SAUBLER, with a gun in hand, supervises this different type  of “selection” to make sure everybody is dead . German soldiers execute the injured rioters. ELLA and ROSA, along with TWO MORE female workers, REGINA and TOSCA, in the UNION/WERKE (KRUPP) Defense Industries factory that supplied GIDEON with dynamite are tortured by Gestapo. Their faces are so grotesquely disfigured. When LEON visits ELLA in her cell, she finds her unconscious on the floor soaked blood. Determined ROSA asks him not to feel sorry about her condition but to avenge her death and keep on fighting. The NAZIS hang the FOUR WOMEN high above the bunker’s roof.  INSERT/ARI’s DIARY AND VOICE OVER:” I lived in that rathole for four months until the allies came in. 57.000 people from Thessaloniki weren’t that lucky”. ANOTHER ANGLE: ARI is asking the RED ARMY soldier for a cigarette. Now dead bodies are piling up in crematoria and carcasses are stacked in trolleys. Like in  a factory of mass death production. SONDERKOMMANDO men are  pulling the trolleys to the crematoria.   Dozens have already dropped dead  when a small  team manages to reach crematorium No 4. The guard who can kill up to take up arms prisoners. The  Nazi murderers die a death in SLOW MOTION , the victims become aggressors. CUT TO NATALIE’S APARTMENT/PRESENT DAY: Daylight rays passing through the Venetian blinds.  NATALIE looks calm. Time passes by. She grows nervous. She’s waiting for something. LEON visits her and tries to explain to her how guilty he feels because of his pathetic attitude during the SONDERKOMMANDO riot. NATALIE explains that she understands human nature, and that she’s in love with him. LEON says that one of them has to go before things became complicated. NATALIE asks him to go out for dinner one last time. They are dancing a Yiddish waltz to the tune of  (KLEZMATICS/sung by CHAVA ALBERSTEIN). SS Men are forcing their prisoners to stand in the beam. (GERMAN SOLDIER: “Run!Run!”)               BIRCENAU: The prisoners start to run. The SS men open fire with a machine gun mounted on the vehicle. People in the building opposite begin to SCREAM. The prisoners are being shot down. They are lifted into the air by the bullets, turn somersaults, fall dead. ONE MAN escapes by running back in the opposite direction, out of the beam of light and is lost to sight for a moment. The escaping man, a silhouette, out of the light, runs with all his strength, putting distance between himself and the SS. He starts to scale a wall. He looks as though he's getting away. But there's a floodlight on the SS vehicle. It flares into light, swivels and finds the man. A volley of shots.  The man drops from the wall, dead. The SS men get into the vehicle and speed off, driving over the dead bodies. ARI and LEON stare at the scene, silent, shocked   THE SOUND OF A SOLO VIOLIN from the traditional Sephardic song “SKOTCHNA HONGA”. CAMERA SWOOPS THROUGH THE CLOUDS and we see NATALIE like in a surreal dream walking through her old neighborhood. It’s the Jewish ghetto next to the railroad station. The Baron Hirsch neighborhood. Freezing cold.  She’s back. Devastation, not a human being in sight. Nothing. Emptiness. She is alone. CAMERA circles around her 360 degrees. Now, the old neighborhood is restored back to its former life and glory. A Jewish wedding takes place. Jewish, Armenian, Greek, Turkish are dancing together. There’s a festive, vibrant atmosphere. She’s dancing with her father. Her friends, relatives, the children she used to play with are all alive.         CUT TO: NATALIE wakes up, shivering, her face full of sweat. (FEMALE VOICE ECHOES in Hebrew:”Have you heard the rumours they're going to resettle us in Madagascar?” The name is repeated again and again). SAUBLER old and sick in BIRCENAU making a selection, using his pistol to prod people into forming a line for the gas chamber.. CUT TO SALVATION HOSPITAL: ARI murmurs  to LEON: "Life is a gift ...She's waiting for you ". ARI passes out. LEON collapses on a chair. Weeps next to ARI’s deathbed. A FEMALE HAND touches on his shoulder. NATALIE tries to comfort him. LATER:They hug each other crying. The only sounds, the weeping of the people opposite and, nearer.         CANETTI dances HORON, a Sephardic dance,  (“ALTA ES LA  LUNA” instrumental) by himself. A man alone in the emptiness of termination camp  of Bircenau, where most of his dearest friends, relatives and neighbors died. Like he demonstrates the dance movements by himself. After a while we see-- HIGH ANGLE: Hundreds of people join him, young and old, survivors and their grandchildren. Including Natalie. They are forming circles, holding hands. They are dancing. United. Together. TITLE CARD FADES IN: “Don’t rejoice in his defeat, you men. For through the world stood up and stopped the bastard. The bitch that bore him is in heat again”. BERTOLT BRECHT END TITLES ROLLING. WE SEE ACTUAL PHOTOS FROM LIFE, DEATH, TORTURE AND LIBERATION AT CONCENTRATION CAMPS. .