Nelson, Tim Blake, dir. The Grey Zone

The Grey Zone is based on Miklós Nyiszli’s memoir Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account (1993), and takes its name from Primo Levi’s essay The Grey Zone; hence the film exhibits an intertextual relationship between Nyiszli’s memoir, Levi’s critical reflections, and its own dramatization of historical events. It depicts the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz II and their revolt on 7 October 1944, portraying the Sonderkommando and Nyiszli himself as focal characters. None of these characters are depicted as being clearly distinguishable as either victim or perpetrator, hence the film takes Levi’s work and its own namesake to heart; which simultaneously highlights its relevance to perpetrator studies.

The Sonderkommandos struggle with their daily tasks, including shepherding new arrivals into the gas chambers and burning their bodies afterwards. Their attitudes toward the gruesome work differ: Polish Jew Hesch Abramowics (Steve Buscemi) wishes to survive to testify of the horrors, whereas insurgency leader Simon Schlermer (Daniel Benzali) wishes to die in the revolt. The film follows Levi’s notion that “no one is authorized to judge them” (47), and leaves the final verdict on the Sonderkommandos’ possible complicity or collaboration to the viewer.

Miklós Nyiszli (Allan Corduner) is likewise deeply entrenched in the grey zone. He works as personal assistant of Josef Mengele (Henry Stram), a position which grants him considerable privilege, including the possibility of saving his wife and daughter from death in camp C. The film again refrains from judgement, also depicting the strenuous relation between Nyiszli and the Sonderkommandos, who are aware of the extent of the former’s collaboration.

A final figure of interest for perpetrator studies in the film is SS-Oberscharführer Erich Muhsfeldt (Harvey Keitel). The film depicts the events surrounding a Jewish girl who survived the gas differently from Nyiszli’s account and Levi’s reflection on it. The girl is discovered by Muhsfeldt, and Levi recounts how he “hesitates, then he decides: No, the girl must die.” Surprisingly, “he does not kill her with his own hands,” but “he calls one of his underlings to eliminate her with a blow to the nape of the neck.” (45) Muhsfeldt personally shoots the girl in the film’s climax, however.

The events as reported by Nyiszli—Muhsfeldt hesitating—are reason for Levi to “place him too, although at its extreme boundary, within the gray band, that zone of ambiguity” (46). The decision to portray the events surrounding the surviving girl and Muhsfeldt differently raise interesting questions concerning the representation of evil, ambiguity, and, indeed, the grey zone.

The Grey Zone is graphic in its content and does not give easy explanations for the horrors it depicts. Nor are its characters easily classifiable as perpetrator or victim, or as evil or bad; the eponymous grey zone is pervasive throughout the film instead. As such, it is not suitable for viewing by the uninformed, but recommendable for viewing when studying the grey zone, especially in combination with Levi’s and/or Nyiszli’s work.

Author of this entry: Martijn Loos.

Works cited:

Levi, Primo. “The Grey Zone.” The Drowned and the Saved, 1988, Simon & Schuster, reissue 2017, pp. 25-56.

Nyiszli, Mikos. Auschwitz: A Doctor’s Eyewitness Account. Translated by Tibere Kramer and Richard Seaver, Arcade Publishing, 1993.

Nelson, Tim Blake, dir. The Grey Zone. United States: Lionsgate, 2001.