Bradley Shedd -
CSE 2642/826 – A2 Go to the Movies- Apr. 27,2011/4pm/Apr. 27, 2011
The story starts with a 15 year-old boy,
György "Gyuri" Köves, and we are seeing the Holocaust thru his eyes.
The movie is titled “Fateless” and the character I will be focusing on is the
main character Gyuri. This is an autobiography of how Gyuri was able to be happy
in a concentration camp. This true story begins with a Jewish boy named, Gyuri
wearing his yellow Star of David on his coat pocket in school.
Gyuri lives with his dad Mr.
Köves and his step-mom Mrs.
Köves in Budapest. After Gyuri came home from school, his parents were
meeting with Mr. Sutiao in the living room. Mr. Sutiao asked if they had any
goods and he will look after them for the time being. This meant that the
Köves gave the man some
jewelry but still kept the jewelry box a secret.
The Köves live in an
expensive house with fine china and a huge dining room table. There are
expensive and shiny looking objects all around the house. The father now
announces that he will be leaving for forced labor in the morning. However,
Gyuri is preoccupied with meeting a girl on the staircase and misses his
father’s announcements. She wants to run off and play cards, Gyuri promises that
he will meet up with her later. Then, Gyuri walks back to the family meeting and
here is where the grandma and grandpa are introduced. Everyone in the
Köves family is wearing yellow stars of David stitched onto their
coats. The whole family agrees that wearing the yellow stars made of cloth is a
shame. Questions are raised about why thousands of years of war are brought to
the Jews. Grandpa Viti tells of secret intelligence allies squeezing out Poland,
and now Poland is in trouble. They
Köves agree that they are safe in Hungary.
That same day, young Gyuri is
learning Hebrew with his bishop. Later, Gyuri meets up with his neighbors,
Seiner and Fleichman. Together they go to buy food and goods at the black
market. When they return dinner is prepared and the father is packed and ready
to go to the forced labor camp. Mr.
Köves is trying to fast forward the time and wish that he and the family
can soon sit together again over dinner. Everyone says their goodbyes and the
father tells his son bye.
The war continues and Gyuri is on
his way to see his mom. Gyuri explains that he does not want to live with her
and he leaves her house. The town in Budapest is on a curfew, but Gyuri has a
pass. The following day Gyuri awakens to Sutiao coming into the room with gifts
for his step-mom. Gyuri goes outside and finds Anna Maria, his girlfriend. She
states that there is no point of wearing a rotten yellow star, and Gyuri agrees.
That night, Gyuri packs for a trip to the camp for forced labor. His neighbors
Steiner and Fleichmann suggested for Gyuri to take the bus, and he did to the
forced labor camp.
Next, Gyuri arrives at a bus stop
and gets off with other boys wearing yellow stars on their coat pocket. They
have now left the Jewish quarter. The boys are grouped with the men and are
moved like cattle to the stables. The stables were crowded and muddy. Later that
night there are sirens and explosions. The next day soldiers were screaming at
the Jews saying that they signaled the British troops there and they will be
killed. Gyuri now knows that he can be killed at any time. There is a train
going to Auschwitz in Poland and the German soldiers are loading it with healthy
workers. Gyuri lied about his age and said he was 16 in order to stay alive.
The families stayed together tried to exchange their valuables for food.
It is cold and snowing and they don’t even have any water.
Now, Gyuri and everyone arrive in
Auschwitz but women and males were separated. Gyuri has heard that there are gas
chambers around and the older people whom couldn’t work there were gassed. Gyuri
gets assigned a number that is his new name now, 64929. Gyuri is now traveling
to Zeitz where there are showers and crematories. His friends are now gone so he
is around complete strangers now. But, if someone wore a yellow triangle upside
down with the letter “U” in the middle then they are a Hungarian Jew. Then, if
someone wore a green upside down triangle with a “Z” in the middle then they are
murderers and they uphold the law in the camp. Gyuri runs into his neighbor from
Ukraine, Bandi. Bandi said he was living in Ukraine for four years.
The next morning, a bell rings for
breakfast. Gyuri is served cold coffee in a tin bowl. Bandi and Gyuri live in
block five and they wear clothes with black and white stripes with a striped
hat. After breakfast, they go to work on the train tracks shoveling rock off
train carts. Gyuri tried to stop working because he had blisters on his hands
and body lice was biting into his skin on his back. The German soldier blows his
whistle and forces Gyuri back to work. Bandi tries to help Gyuri by forcing him
to remember how good home was and they will be there one day fulfilling their
goal of walking the streets with women.
That night, some of the Jews are
gathered around in a circle praying under a blanket with candle light. Gyuri and
Bandi are discussing that it is the only hope they have left is to pray to live
through tomorrow. They all stand in formation throughout the day and some of
them fall over and die from famine. Gyuri’s friend from the brick stables died
earlier today.
The following morning, Gyuri is
marching with the others to the rock labor yard. There are butchered bodies and
famine corpses laying everywhere. Gyuri was only given crumbs this morning for
breakfast. Gyuri notices a fat German soldier eating spaghetti in a sloppy way
slurping it up. After working, Gyuri makes a deal with a fellow prisoner for
some potatoes and salt now for his ration of breakfast tomorrow. The rock labor
yards have just been bombed. So now the soldiers are making the Jews stack sacks
of grain for forced labor. After working and stacking grain, Bandi notices Gyuri
has body lice that ate infected sores all over his body. Bandi gives Gyuri his
jacket. Gyuri falls over and over because his left knee is infected and swollen
to the size of a basketball. Gyuri falls down again and doesn’t get back up.
Later that night, Gyuri wakes up
next to his friend that smokes from back at the bus station, but he is dead.
Gyuri survives for a couple of days by eating both his rations and his dead
friend’s rations. Gyuri continued to sleep with his dead friend and got a really
bad fever. Gyuri now is exhausted and there is no strength left in his body.
German soldiers come and strip Gyuri of his clothes and stack him in a wheel
barrow with other naked dead people onto a truck bed. The naked group is hosed
off with water and the survivors are picked from the dead.
The next day, Gyuri awakens in a
big bed with a huge red quilt and pillow. Gyuri’s knee is back to original size,
because it was lanced and cleaned by a doctor. There is a nurse that brings
Gyuri hot soup and plenty of water. Next, there are some American soldiers that
arrive outside of his window. Gyuri gets up and walks outside. A soldier asks
Gyuri if he smokes and hands him a cigarette and he says “No, thank-you.” Gyuri
speaks good English and the soldier recommends that he goes to Switzerland in
Sweden and study at a university. Gyuri wants to go back home to Budapest
instead. So the American soldier boards Gyuri onto a Humvee. In this scene Gyuri
is in a moral dilemma to look for family and friends. He could have left and
lived a carefree life in Sweden instead. The soldier now reports that the others
whom Gyuri is riding with are all going to Hungary on their own free will. The
American soldiers will take them all as far as the zone border where then they
will be in the Soviets hands.
Next, in this particular scene the
Jewish ex-prisoners are all in a wash room. There was one man that never took
off his shirt. They all approached the shirted man and forced him to remove it.
Under the shirt there were German tattoos and a German medallion on his
necklace. The Jews were outraged and asked Gyuri to turn him into the Americans
for working with the Germans at the forced labor camps. Gyuri had the decision
to get his revenge, but he didn’t take the German soldier in because his knee
hurts.
Then, Gyuri arrived at the station
in Buchenwald and women were looking for their husbands. Gyuri walks to his home
street that looked crumbled and abandoned. Gyuri goes looking for his friend
Bandi Citrom at his house but Bandi isn’t there. Gyuri is filled with hatred
towards Budapest for letting the forced labor camps continue. Gyuri goes back to
his house and rings the doorbell. A
stranger answers the door and there is a baby crying in the back room. Gyuri
then walks over to his neighbor’s house. His neighbors open the door and there
is Gyuri barely standing in front of them in those old black and white striped
prison clothes. Gyuri asks where is his father and they told him that Mr.
Köves died in Austrian territory in
Mauthausen. Gyuri’s girlfriend, Anna Maria, came looking for him and they found
each other. Gyuri’s step-mom married Mr. Suito the black market dealer. Gyuri
meets his mother that was waiting on him to get home. Gyuri said he was there
for four or maybe five months in Auschwitz and a year total in all camps
combined. He mentioned that he missed the camps to his girlfriend, Anna Marie,
and he missed everyone he met. Gyuri said that life was cleaner in the forced
labor camps and he stayed happy in a tough time of life.