I just saw the movie. It is the story of a german army POW (Clemens Forell) who was taken prisoner in 1944. He was ent to a camp in Siberia, where he worked in a lead mine. He was almost killed after an escape attempt-the camp doctor (another german POW) nursed him back to health-and helped him escape. Forell spent 3 years crossing the USSR, and wound up in Samarkand-where he was befriended by a jewish guy (who got him a false passport and an exit visa)-was this part true?
Forell eventually made it into Iran, and from there he went back to Germany.
Was this movie mostly fiction? And, did any of his friends at the camp survive? I thought most German POWs were repatriated by 1958 or so.
Anyway, I recommend the movie-it is well done and holds your interest.
The movie is based on a novel, but the novel is based in part on the story of Cornelius Rost who did escape a Soviet prison camp in Siberia in 1949 and got to Iran in 1952.
According to this March 2010 article on a 3-hour Bavarian Radio 2 program broadcasted on the 2010 Easter holidays (found via a link from the German Wikipedia article) some details of Rost’s account (taped in the 1950s and now available to historians) made the historians doubt its veracity (some dates and places are incorrect, and the subject’s command of Russian isn’t what you’d expect from someone who spent years on the lam in Russia.)
I am sure that the script writers changed thisng a bit-but you have to admit-escaping from a Siberina prison camp was quite an accomplishment. And geeting out of the countrywqas pretty hard.
Would the Russian guards really have chased the guy? they probably assumed that he would die in a few eeks at most-Siberia is not an easy place to survive in.