FILM · 2015 · CANADA
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25 archived facts 3 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
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The film contains several hints supporting the big reveal: when Zev looks at the shower head while bathing, a faint sound of a screaming person is heard in the background; at first glance one might think he is reliving his time at Auschwitz, but given the nature of the gas chambers, it is unlikely that anyone could have survived entering one and lived to tell the story. While the clerk in the gun shop checks Zev's identity for any anomaly in the security system, the system lists several people it is searching for; Zev reacts quite harshly to the word "fugitive" and even rejects the idea that he is a fugitive from justice, though apparently he has no reason to worry about this. Although Zev believes he cannot use a gun and even asks for written instructions on how to use one, he handles the weapon skillfully when he must defend himself with it: he first kills the attacking dog with a single shot, and with his next shot mortally wounds the attacking man. This is a case of "muscle memory," or reflexive conditioning, stemming from earlier (albeit forgotten) training as a member of an elite military unit.
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During the Holocaust, concentration camp prisoners were tattooed in only one place: the Auschwitz I camp (the main camp), part of the notorious Auschwitz complex that also consisted of the Auschwitz II extermination camp (Auschwitz-Birkenau) and the Auschwitz III labor camp (Monowitz and its subcamps). Only prisoners selected for work were given serial numbers. Other prisoners who arrived by train and were not deemed fit for heavy labor (such as children, youths, the disabled and the elderly) were sent directly to the gas chambers and killed. To prevent possible uprisings, the gas chambers were disguised to look like showers. These victims were never registered and were not tattooed. This is one of the reasons it is difficult today to estimate the exact number of victims.
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When Zev meets John Kurlander at his house, Kurlander assumes that Zev served with the Nazis at Auschwitz and is pleased to meet him (because of his Nazi sympathies). Although he changes his mind when he sees the tattoos on Zev's arm, and Zev himself is clearly uncomfortable with the idea of being mistaken for a Nazi, the irony is that Kurlander's initial assumption turns out to be entirely correct at the end of the film, meaning Kurlander really did meet an Auschwitz guard.
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German actor Günter Lamprecht was initially announced as part of the cast but later had to be replaced due to an injury to his knee. Actor Jürgen Prochnow was eventually cast. Lamprecht was almost exactly the right age for the role of Rudy Kurlander #4, while Prochnow was much younger, so extensive special makeup was required to make him look older.
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Rudy Kurlander #1 is played by Bruno Ganz, whose native language is not German but Swiss German. Swiss German shares much of its vocabulary and a fair amount of grammar with Standard German; however, the two languages' speech patterns and "melodies" are completely different. Although German is often described as a language without rhythm or melody, in Swiss German almost every word is stressed on its first syllable. The result is a very different, rhythmic, rising-and-falling melody — exactly the melody that characterizes Ganz's English (his German lines, however, are flawless; he can probably draw on the language training he had to complete to play Hitler in "Der Untergang").
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