Kapo (1960)

Academy Awards, USA 1961

Nominee Oscar

Best Foreign Language Film Italy.

Cineriz
Directed by Gillo Pontecorvo
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb Wikipedia
(DVD, Janus Films)

Young Susan Strasberg and her parents are rounded up by Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. In a harrowing scene, she watches her parents being sent to the gas chambers. Stunned, she wanders the camp and manages to find a sympathetic doctor who givers her a new identity, and chance of survival. She survives for awhile in the awful conditions until hunger drives her to giver herself to the Nazi commanders. Soon she becomes a kapo, trusted to guard her fellow prisoners. She learns all of the tricks and has plenty of food and the best hope of survival. However, she falls in love with another POW and aids in his escape plans. It does not go well. Strasberg's fast and unconvincing transformation from naive teenager to brutal prison guard is the only spoiler in this otherwise excellent film depicting the nightmare inside the concentration camps.