The Grey Zone is a 2001 American historical drama film written and directed by Tim Blake Nelson and starring David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel, Mira Sorvino, and Daniel Benzali. It is based on the book Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account written by Dr. Miklós Nyiszli.The title comes from a chapter in the book The Drowned and the Saved by Holocaust survivor Primo Levi. The film tells the story of the Jewish Sonderkommando XII in the Auschwitz death camp in October 1944. These prisoners were made to assist the camp's guards in shepherding their victims to the gas chambers and then disposing of their bodies in the ovens.