Story Synopsis I The Ninth Fortress

The inspirational story of one man's resolve to lead an escape for all prisoners out of the notorious Ninth Fortress at the end of WW2, and his determination to reunite with his newly wed bride.

A True Story of Trust, Betrayal and Love

December 1943. The Ninth Fortress, Lithuania.  Below zero temperatures. The Germans are losing the War and urgently covering their tracks.  63 prisoners are forced to burn tens of thousands of Jewish men, women, children (“dolls” as the Nazis refer to them).  

Inside the Fortress, on Christmas Eve, each Nazi guard receives a candle symbolizing the victory of light over dark. 

Outside, Alex Faitelson, a charismatic 22-year-old, leads all the prisoners out of the Fortress in a high-risk escape. No one has ever escaped alive.  Climbing through a small opening, with white table napkins on their heads as camouflage in the snow, they run across the Fortress grounds, and scale the walls to freedom.  

NINTH FORTRESS is the extraordinary true story of how one young man, Alex Faitelson, quietly wins the trust of his deeply suspicious fellow prisoners, and his skeptical childhood friends, to pull off this audacious escape. 

A few weeks before, Alex, his young wife Sima, and six close school friends, aged between 17 and 22, are captured on their away to join the freedom fighters.  Sima escapes, but the others are sent to the Ninth Fortress, where the Germans are destroying all evidence of their genocide. As they enter the camp one thought prevails: they must escape. 

Alex’s friends suggest a plan: overcome a couple of guards, take their weapons, steal the transport truck and drive away. Alex is not convinced.  He wants to get everyone out.  He knows if they all escape there’s greater chance some will survive to tell the world what’s been going on.  No one believes Alex can persuade all the prisoners to his plan, and they’re concerned someone will inform the Nazis. But Alex convinces his friends to give him a few days to bring everyone on board.  

It does not go well though and the Russians reject his suggestions. 

They need a new plan.  

One morning, feeding the burning pyres, Alex sees his mother amongst the dead.  Devastated and enraged it galvanizes him to accelerate an escape.  At the same time the Russians are furious that the Nazis have shot several of their sick.  They pledge their support to Alex and take him to a hidden door leading to the outside that could serve as an escape.

There is real urgency to their work: they must escape before the Germans find out, before they all become physically and mentally too weak, and before Alex’s best friend, Meishe, known to be betraying them to the Nazis, destroys their plan.  Michael, a famous Jewish actor, distracts the guards with loud performances of Chekhov whilst they drill a hole in the door.

On Christmas Eve, whilst the guards listen to Himmler’s propaganda broadcast, Alex leads all 63 prisoners through the hatch, into the cold night air, and out of the Fortress.  

Alex returns with some of the escapees to the ghetto, where the partisans welcome them as heroes. But Alex is stripped naked to prevent him from seeing Sima, fearing it will alert the Nazi guards to their return.  But he is not deterred.  Finding a woman’s dress and hat in a wardrobe, he climbs out of the window, races barefoot across the snowy night to find his beloved young bride - a reunion neither dared dream could happen.  

Alex and Sima Faitelson survived the war and were able to testify to the Nuremberg trials and tell the world their extraordinary story of trust, courage and an inspiring will to live.  

© Marc Jobst