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Description: This film depicts the heroic actions of Oskar Schindler, a German war profiteer who, because of his fundamental humanity and great courage, saved more than 1, 100 Jews from death in the Holocaust. The film is based on an exceptional novel, Schindler's List by Thomas Keneally. The word novel has been applied to this book only because the dialogue and certain details are fictional. Mr.
Keneally based the book closely on events reported to him by the Schindlerjuden, people whose lives had been saved by Schindler and who were eye-witnesses to Schindler's heroic actions. Benefits and Possible Problems: SERIOUS. This movie vividly describes the horror of the Holocaust. Schindler's List may cause viewers to cry, feel ill and have nightmares. But people must know about the Holocaust and experience it in some measure because there have been so many instances of mass atrocities since that time, including: the Key Rouge killings in Cambodia, the genocide against the Tutsi's in Rwanda; and the dirty wars in Argentina and Chile.
The recent ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Kosovo is fresh evidence of the need of all mankind to remind itself of the holocausts of the past. If you feel that this film is too shocking, you might want to show children the 1978 CBS Docudrama Holocaust but we recommend Schindler's List. There is also a scene in the film showing explicit sexuality. Schindler was a hero because he repeatedly risked his life to save others and was able to resist the Nazi propaganda and security apparatus. However, Schindler started out as a sharp businessman willing to take advantage of others misfortune, a drinker, a womanizer, and a gambler. One of the wonders of the Schindler story is how such an unlikely man became an example to us all.
Helpful Background: Oskar Schindler (1908 - 1974) was an ethnic German born in the village of Zwittau in Sudentenland, a portion of Czechoslovakia with many German inhabitants. He was known in the village by the name Gainer, which meant swindler or sharper. A Jewish woman who lived in the town and whose life Schindler later saved, said, As a Zwittau citizen I never would have considered him capable of all these wonderful deeds. Oskar Schindler was a member of the Nazi party. He arrived in Cracow, Poland, just after the collapse of the Polish Army and at the beginning of the German occupation. His first effort, as shown in the film, was to capitalize on the misfortune of the Jews who had recently been forbidden from engaging in business.
As an added inducement for them to invest in his new business, he offered to employ the investors or their relatives in his factory. For years, relations between Schindler and his Jewish workers were circumspect. But as the lot of the Jews in Poland worsened, the workers at Schindler's factory noticed that they were somehow protected. Word of this spread through the Jewish community. Schindler spent his evenings entertaining the SS and German Army officers. His apparent political reliability and his engaging personality made him popular among the Nazi elite.
During the day Schindler would entertain officials and visitors to the factory, pouring them vodka and Schnapps, telling them that he knew how to get work out of the Jews and that he wanted more brought into his factory. In this way he managed to bring into the plant and save from the gas chamber intellectuals, artists, and the families and relatives of his workers. Schindler's acts of kindness and bravado saved lives on a daily basis. It was very dangerous to intercede for Jews in Nazi Germany, but Schindler did repeatedly. Often he would say Stop killing my good workers.
Weve got a war to win. One woman, Rena Finder, who was forced into slave labor at the age of ten, recalled that she was about to be shot by an SS guard for breaking a machine used to make bullet casings. Schindler saved her life, telling the guard: You idiot, this little girl could not break that machine. In 1943 the Cracow ghetto was ordered closed and many of the Jews were sent to the death camps.
Those people able to work were moved to the forced labor camp at Plaszow, just outside the City. The conditions in Plaszow were terrible. Many workers died and there were frequent transfers to nearby Auschwitz. In the Spring of 1943 Schindler moved into an active phase of his anti-fascist efforts, conspiring directly with his accountant / manager Itzhak Stern and other employees to save Jews from extermination and to outwit Nazi officials. He bribed Amon Goeth, the commander of Plaszow, to allow him to set up a sub-camp for his workers at the factory, to save time getting to the job. It was then easier to smuggle food and medicine into the factory.
When Plaszow was slated to be shut down and its prisoners transferred to the death camps. Schindler, during a night of drinking, convinced the chief of the war equipment command for all of Poland that Plaszow's workshops were well suited for serious war production. This idea survived the Generals hangover. Plaszow was converted to a war-essential concentration camp and the inmates were no longer slated to be transferred to Auschwitz for extermination. But still, Stern had doubts about Schindler. These ended in late 1943.
In August Schindler hosted visitors sent to him by the underground organization that the Joint Distribution Committee (an American Jewish welfare organization) operated in occupied Europe. Schindler told Stern to speak frankly and the men asked for a full report on anti-semitic persecutions in Plaszow. Stern thought this was a foolish risk and resisted, but finally Schindler ordered him to write the report. Stern wrote everything he could remember, mentioning the names of the living and the dead.
When the underground brought him answering letters from America and Palestine, any doubts that Stern had about the integrity and judgment of Schindler were answered. Schindler, aided by his wife, Emilie, provided extra food and brought in medicine, all purchased on the black market. They allowed religious celebrations in the factory. The SS guards were given regular bribes to keep them from reporting what was happening.
When the tide turned on the Eastern Front and the German forces were in full retreat, Schindler convinced the authorities to permit him to move the factory and the camp to his home area of Sudentenland. After the war, Schindler's talents of bonhomie and lobbying government officials were not as helpful in business as they had been during the war. His business ventures were not successful. The Schindlerjuden gave him money to buy a farm in Argentina but in 1957 it failed. Schindler and his wife then separated and he returned to Europe, living part of the year in both Germany and part of the year in Israel.
The Schindlerjuden and the State of Israel then supported Schindler. In the later years of his life, Schindler was honored as a Righteous Gentile by the Israelis and was the subject of veneration in that country. Schindler had married his wife, Emilie in 1928. He was tall, handsome and had an eye for women. He was not faithful in his marriage. The film omits the role that Emilie Schindler played in Schindler's conversion to anti-fascism and in helping to care for the Schindlerjuden.
Emilie fully supported what her husband did for his workers. She cooked and cared for the sick. She earned praise and a reputation of her own. She has written a book about her life with Schindler, entitled, Where Light and Shadow Meet. We have not read it. Itzhak Stern was the head accountant for a large Jewish owned export-import firm located in Cracow, a large Polish city near the Czech border.
After the occupation of Poland, the Germans Aryanized businesses by seizing ownership, installing a German Trustee, making the former owner into an employee hired to manage the business, and replacing many Jewish workers with Aryan workers. The German Trustee of the business in which Stern worked, however, acted strangely. He left the discharged workers on the social insurance registry which enabled them to maintain their workers identity cards. This protected them, for a while, from deportation.
He also, secretly, gave the former workers money to buy food. After the end of the war Stern learned that the German Trustee was actually a Jew who was masquerading as an Aryan. It was this man who first introduced Stern to Schindler saying You know, Stern, you can have confidence in my friend Schindler. However, it took years for Stern to fully trust Schindler. It was difficult to sort through Schindler's greed, high living, close association with Nazi officials, and membership in the Nazi party, to see the real man.
These were the very traits that permitted Schindler to survive detection by the Nazis.
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Research essay sample on Money To Buy Oskar Schindler
