the amazing movie, "Son of Saul" about the Sonderkommando

[Diane Tepfer]

Tuesday evening I saw Son of Saul at my local DCJCC.

The first amazing surprise for me was the introduction by representative of the Hungarian Embassy [the govt had provided much of the funding]; he told us that he is the grandson of a Survivor.

The film "follows Saul Auslander, a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the Jews forced to dispose of the human remains from the gas chambers, as he tries to rescue a dead boy’s body from meeting the fate of the ovens."  Aslander searches for a Rabbi to bury the dead boy.  As a member of Fabrangen's Chevra Kadisha  / Funeral Practices Committee, I couldn't help thinking how different the story would have been had Auslander known more about Jewish Funeral Practices, and he didn't need a Rabbi.  But then there wouldn't have been a compelling film.  

Ironically, Tuesday's New York Times article, In ‘Son of Saul,’ Laszlo Nemes Expands the Language of Holocaust Films notes that the lead actor "volunteers for a Jewish burial society."

The very intimate portrayal of the Sonderkommando also led me to some quotidian questions.  How did the inmates shave in the camps?  Did they have access to razors?   Son of Saul is opening commercially.  I commend this film.

"Mr. Geza Rohrig [who plays the ever-present protagonist] , 48, who took a leave from his job teaching Jewish studies at a Brooklyn private school to promote the film, volunteers for a Jewish burial society. He spent months visiting Auschwitz as a student in Poland in the 1980s and wrote a book of poems about it. He said he regarded the Sonderkommando as victims, not perpetrators, adding that they were the only Jews in the camp to understand that they faced certain death and that his acting had to reflect that knowledge."

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Diane Tepfer
Washington, DC
dte...@gmail.com  

[Klapper, David G.]

About a year or two ago, we had the honor of burying an ash cake from the Dachau concentration camp.  That cake, given to a US soldier during liberation of the camp is now, after these many years, buried in our Durham Hebrew Cemetery and resides under a monument crafted specifically for the grave site.  I've taken the liberty of attaching both a photo of the memorial and an article from a local newspaper.  There are many stories about how both ashes and remains of concentration camp victims were 'handled' - there is no record of how many of these ash cakes were created by surviving prisoners (although the ash cake that came into our possession has a 'serial number' engraved into it) nor any record of the disposition of these remains.

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From: jewish-...@googlegroups.com [jewish-...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Diane Tepfer [dte...@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 16, 2015 1:33 AM
Subject: [jewish-funerals] the amazing movie, "Son of Saul" about the Sonderkommando

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