The World Will Tremble, a World War Two film based on a true story, is now streaming on BBC iPlayer. The fly-on-the-wall style drama portrays the remarkable account of Jewish prisoners breaking free from a death camp and has left viewers shaken.
Escape from Chelmno
Set in Poland in 1942, the film chronicles the story of Szlama Ber Winer and Michael Podchlebnik, two Jewish prisoners held at a Nazi death camp where they are forced to dig graves for their own people. The pair devise a daring escape from the Chelmno extermination camp, where hundreds of thousands were slaughtered by the Nazis. They struggle to survive long enough to expose the horrific atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis.
Viewer reactions
One IMDb user said: "The World Will Tremble isn't here to comfort you. It doesn't offer catharsis or release. It traps you in the raw, unrelenting despair of its characters, and that's precisely the point. Some critics have knocked it for being emotionally oppressive. I'd argue it's immersive. You don't watch this film, you endure it, the way its characters endured the unimaginable."
The same user praised Oliver Jackson-Cohen's performance: "Oliver Jackson-Cohen is phenomenal. His portrayal of a prisoner in the Chelmno extermination camp simmers with quiet despair. He doesn't need dramatic monologues. His performance is internal, bone-deep. You feel every ounce of exhaustion, fear, and spiritual collapse."
They also highlighted Michael Epp's role as the Nazi camp commander: "And then there's Michael Epp as the Nazi camp commander. At first glance, his performance might seem theatrical, too stylized, too cold. But it slowly reveals itself as terrifyingly calculated. He radiates a kind of casual, almost gleeful evil that feels otherworldly until you remember this was real. His blissful detachment becomes the perfect counterpoint to Jackson-Cohen's torment-matching bliss for despair, beat for beat."
The user concluded: "Yes, the film is unrelentingly tense. Yes, it's emotionally exhausting. But when you're telling a story set in Chelmno, the first Nazi extermination camp-anything less would feel dishonest. The constant pressure is a narrative choice meant to evoke the psychological cage its characters can't escape. Critics may call it overacted or overwrought. I call it a punch to the soul-and that's exactly what it should be. This film doesn't aim to entertain. It aims to haunt. And it does."
A harrowing true account
Another viewer described it as "harrowing and eye opening", writing: "This powerful film is both compelling and difficult to watch. It is based on the true accounts of two escapees from the Chelmno Death Camp, shedding light on one of the lesser-known yet horrific chapters of the Holocaust."
The film reveals how Jews were deceived into believing they were being sent to labor camps, leading many to unknowingly cooperate with the Nazis. It then delivers a brutally honest depiction of how the camp operated, showing the systematic extermination of Jews upon arrival, and the horrific tasks forced upon the few prisoners kept alive, including sorting the belongings of the murdered, digging mass graves, and disposing of bodies.
For those interested in learning more, the film's subject matter can be explored further by searching for "Szlama Ber Winer," the "Grojanowski Report," and "Mordechaï Podchlebnik" on Wikipedia. The World Will Tremble is streaming now on BBC iPlayer.
