Escape from Sobibor Film

On October 14, 1943, a breakout from the Nazi extermination camp Sobibor occurred. In Holocaust history, it is the only successful breakout and escape from a Nazi concentration or extermination camp. This movie accurately portrays real life individuals that lived, worked, escaped, died, or ran the Sobibor extermination camp.
'Escape from Sobibor' is a 1987 British movie made for television, which aired on CBS in the United States. It stars Rutger Hauer, Joanna Pacula, Alan Arkin and many others. Although details in the film were slightly different than the real life people, the vast majority of true life details of the operation, daily life, and eventual escape are accurate. Survivors Thomas 'Tovi' Blatt and Esther Raab gave written and verbal testimony that contributed to the accuracy of the details in the film.
The film accurately portrays real life individuals such as Sergeant Gustav Wagner, Karl Frenzel, Leon Feldhendler, Sasha Pechersky (played by Rutger Hauer), "Luka" (played by Joanna Pacula), Tovi Blatt, Ester Raab, and Chaim and Selma Engel. The term 'concentration' camp is often used to describe any time of camp within the Holocaust. However, there were different types of camps within the Nazi Holocaust camp system. Sobibor was not a concentration camp.
When Reinhard Heydrick was assassinated, the Nazi SS decided to enact revenge on the remaining Jews of Europe, that they had not gassed to death yet. Therefore, the SS put in place "Operation Reinhard," which consisted of constructing small, very remote, hidden, extermination camps, that were constructed with the sole purpose of gassing Jews immediately upon their arrival. Operation Reinhard ushered in the deadliest phase of the 'Final Solution' in an attempt to hasten the complete extermination of all European Jews. Three main extermination camps of Operation Reinhard were Treblinka, Sobibor, and Belzec.
Sobibor needed a small labor force of 600 Jews to to the every day work to run the camp. When the escape occurred, only about 300 Sobibor Jews made it out of the camp. Of those 300, only about 200 of them made it to the woods. Of those 200, only about 50 or 60 (exact numbers are not known) survived until the end of the war. Of those few survivors, many went on to testify, speak publicly, and write about what happened at the Sobibor extermination camp. Sasha Pechersky, who was a Russian soldier, testified in trials against many of the Ukranian guards, and most of which were sentenced to death. Chaim and Selma Engel, Ester Raab and Tovi Thomas Blatt spent years testifying in war crimes trials that led to executions and prison sentences. Tovi Blatt spent the remainder of his life trying to find healing and peace from the torment of his personal loss at Sobibor.
Selma Engel later stated in a documentary of her life, "(after we escaped) We kept running, running, running......always running. Until.........we come to American. Then we stop running." NEVER AGAIN!!!