A theatre play that explores the moral dilemmas of the '' Sonderkommando '' was '' The Grey Zone '' , directed by Doug Hughes and produced in New York at MCC Theater in 1996 . The play was later made into a film of the same title by producer Tim Blake Nelson . The film took its mood , as well as much of its plot , from Nyiszli , portraying members of the '' Sonderkommando '' as crossing the line from victim to perpetrator , as when '' Sonderkommando '' Hoffman ( played by David Arquette ) beats a man to death in the undressing room under the eyes of a smiling SS member . Nelson makes it clear that the subject of the film is that very moral ambiguity . “ We can see each one of ourselves in that situation , perhaps acting in that way , because we are human . But we ’re not sanctified victims . ” A 2014 “ novelized ” memoir , '' A Damaged Mirror '' , explores the lengths to which a former '' Sonderkommando '' will go to obtain forgiveness and closure : “ The fact that good people can be forced to do wrong does n’t make them less good , ” the survivor says of himself , “ but it also does n’t make the wrong less wrong . ” In 2015 , '' Son of Saul '' , a 2015 Hungarian film directed by László Nemes , and winner of the 2015 Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix , details the story of one '' Sonderkommando '' attempting to bury a dead child he takes for his son . Géza Röhrig , who starred in the film , reacted with anger to the suggestion , made by a journalist , that members of the '' Sonderkommando '' were “ half-victim , half-hangman ” . “ There has to be a clarification , ” he said . “ They are 100 % victims . They have not spilled blood or been involved in any sort of killing . They were inducted on arrival under the threat of death . They had no control of their destinies . They were as victimised as any other prisoners in Auschwitz . ”
2015 Cannes Film Festival
2015 Cannes Film Festival
Sonderkommando