Remember, it's a movie, not a documentary.

Rating: 8/10 (24 January 2009)

Since this movie is allegedly based on a true story, this is what this movie "teaches" about being a Jewish partisan in World War Two: 1. it was a great opportunity to improve your social life, even to get married; 2. Jewish civilians were better soldiers than their German counterparts in the Wehrmacht; 3. Escaping from a Jewish ghetto was easy, just crawl through the hole in the wall while the guards are not looking; 4. it was a great time to learn how to play chess; 5. intellectuals were frowned upon; 6. Jews from time to time went around shooting up towns; 7. Jewish women looked great when cooking food for total strangers in the middle of a forest; 8. sometimes Jewish partisans thought about returning to the ghetto where it seemed safer; 9. Jewish partisans were able to destroy tanks and defeat heavily armed paramilitary troops; 10. Jews were able to walk through miles and miles of swamps without any ill effects. 11. Collaborators were paid 500 rubles for every Jew they turned over to the Germans. Hooray for the movies!
Now reality. This movie is excellent escapist fare that may make one feel better about being Jewish. The mere mention World War Two congers up images of Jews being arrested, deported and murdered by the score, by the hundreds, by the thousands, by the tens of thousands, by the hundreds of thousands and by the millions in facilities that were constructed specifically to systematically carry out a state sponsored policy of genocide. Fighting back was not an option. The victims were unarmed and defenseless civilians, a substantial number consisting of pregnant women, the frail elderly and infirmed and small children, including newborn babies. These were the enemies that the Germans had vowed to eradicate. These were the enemies that the German Wehrmacht fought against. And in every country occupied by the Germans, local inhabitants assisted the Germans in prosecuting their policy of genocide. As a work of fiction, movies have license to take liberties with the facts. But when a movie, such as this one, asserts that it is based on a true story, then the movie warrants further scrutiny regarding the veracity of the story and in this case the story seems to be a romanticized account of events that have been schmaltzed up to make the movie more appealing. This movie is certainly worth watching but with this disclaimer: it's a movie, not a documentary. True, some Jews did fight back, such as in Warsaw, and some did organize themselves into partisan groups and when they had the opportunity trounced the Germans, but sustained resistance as independent fighting groups did not happen because it could not. Newborn babies do not make effective soldiers. Jews fighting against the Germans? That's pure Hollywood. It sounds good, looks good, feels good, but is it history?
The problem was not with the Jews, it was the Germans. What the Germans did under Adolf Hitler was insane and the question is not why did the Jews not fight back, but rather in what fantasy world were the Germans operating under to want them to fight the Jews?
Making a movie about Jews fighting back? Okay, what about this: a movie about the Germans in Hamburg fighting back as Hamburg is being pulverized then burnt by the British and the Americans. The point being, yeah maybe one or two Germans fired guns at the bombers and may have even scored a hit or two, but it was NO CONTEST! Or what about the "Battle of Cologne" in May 1942 when the British demolished the ENTIRE CITY! Okay, maybe the Germans managed to knock down one or two bombers, but again NO CONTEST! Why always show the Jews being mistreated? Show what happened to the Germans under their Fuehrer who they wholeheartedly supported. While Jews were scrounging for survival in a forest, Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Dusseldorf, and scores of other cities were being systematically destroyed, yet the Germans failed to get rid of Hitler. What were they thinking? Indeed, were they even thinking?