Schindler's List (film)

Identification American film

Director Steven Spielberg (1946-    )

Date Released on December 15, 1993

This film is a docudrama about Oskar Schindler, a Catholic, Sudeten German businessman who started up a factory in Kraków, Poland, and used Jewish slave labor to produce enamelware for the German war effort. Based on the book Schindler’s Ark (1982) by Thomas Keneally, it is a powerful story of one man’s conversion from crass opportunism to salvation.

Schindlerjuden (“Schindler’s Jews”) were those Jews saved from the “final solution” (genocide) through the actions of one man. Schindler, a Nazi war profiteer who took full advantage of Nazi anti-Semitic policies, inexplicably used his position and his acquired wealth to save the lives of his workers. Not especially an honorable (or even honest) man, when faced with the moral dilemma of allowing his Jews to die or of acting on their behalf at enormous personal danger, Schindler chose to act. Risking all, he ultimately lost everything—except for the loyalty and devotion of those whom he saved.

Now buried in the Latin cemetery in Jerusalem, Schindler was accorded the title of “Righteous Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem (the Israeli Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority), an honor given only to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Poldek Pfefferberg, a Schindlerjude, wanted the world to learn of one Gentile who truly practiced the rabbinic teaching, “If you save one life, it is as if you have saved the world.” Written with Pfefferberg’s information (and extensive research), Keneally’s book was published in 1982, eight years after the death of Schindler. American director Steven Spielberg, who is Jewish, convinced Universal Studies to purchase the rights to Schindler’s Ark, but it took a decade for him to feel ready to film the story.

The Story

Following the German conquest of Poland in September, 1939, Polish Jews from southeastern Poland are relocated to a ghetto in Kraków, to which Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), a business failure but talented raconteur, comes. The quintessential schmoozer, Nazi party member Schindler soon acquires a confiscated enamelware factory and military contracts for mess kits. Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), a member of the local Judenrat (Jewish council), neither likes nor trusts Schindler but views his offer to run the factory (after raising the necessary capital from the Jewish community) as an opportunity to help his people. “Herr Direktor” deals with the Nazis, while Stern handles administrative matters and ensures that as many Jews as can be hired become employees. SS-Untersturmführer (second lieutenant) Amon Göth (Ralph Fiennes) arrives in Kraków with orders to construct a labor camp at Płaszów, on the outskirts of Kraków. When completed, SS troops clear the Kraków ghetto, shooting those who object and others simply for sport. Schindler, out riding with his mistress, observes the bloodbath from a hill overlooking the ghetto and is profoundly affected.

Surviving Jews are removed to Płaszów, but Schindler befriends Göth and convinces him to allow a sub-camp at his factory for his workers. When Göth is ordered to dismantle Płaszów and to ship the inmates to the death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Schindler convinces Göth to allow him to move the workforce to a factory at Brinnlitz, Schindler’s hometown. “Schindler’s List” consists of approximately 1,100 names of those who are to be transported to the new site. En route, train cars carrying 300 women are accidentally directed to Auschwitz-Birkenau, but Schindler rushes to the camp and bribes the camp commander with diamonds to spare the women. At his factory, Schindler controls the guards, while spending most of his fortune to protect his workers. With the Red Army closing in, Schindler flees but only after the Schindlerjuden provided him with a letter stating that he was not a criminal to them. The film concludes with actors from the film and living Schindlerjuden placing stones on Schindler’s grave in Jerusalem.

Reaction to Spielberg’s Film

Schindler’s List focuses less on Schindler and more on the Jewish tragedy of the Holocaust. Except for the opening and the closing sequences, the film is primarily black and white, thereby providing the impression of a documentary. The pivotal event in the film is a lengthy sequence that portrays the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto. Spielberg intended for it to be horribly gruesome—literally so shocking that it would be almost unwatchable. At one point, a bewildered little girl in a red (deliberately colored) coat takes the hand of a German soldier, and they walk up the street together. Later, her body appears on a cart, just one more corpse to be incinerated. Indeed, smoke is a theme of the film: candle smoke from the Shabbat, ash and soot from cremation, and candle smoke again at the end.

Schindler’s List won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. It has been highly ranked in virtually every list of outstanding films. When it appeared on American television in 1997, Spielberg insisted that it be shown unedited and uncensored. Except for a minor sex scene that was edited, this occurred, although a new rating category for the TV Parental Guidelines, TV-MA, was created just for the film.

Impact

At the end of the film, the viewer learns that survivors and descendants of the Schindlerjuden then numbered over 6,000. Three million Polish Jews (as well as a like number of Polish Gentiles) died under Nazi occupation. Schindler stands as a shining example of moral action; in that dark period, so many people did nothing, which is at best an act of complicity. The film is flawed, but its most positive accomplishment is the raising of overall awareness of the tragedy. It surely bespeaks the importance of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., dedicated the same year Schindler’s List opened. Spielberg himself founded and financed the Shoah Foundation, an archive of videotaped or oral histories of Holocaust survivors and witnesses.

Bibliography

Brecher, Elinor J. Schindler’s Legacy: True Stories of the List Survivors. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1994. Brecher presents the stories of over forty Schindlerjuden who live in the United States. A significant contribution to Holocaust literature, it relates their stories before, during, and after the war.

Crowe, David M. Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities, and the True Story Behind the List. Cambridge, Mass.: Westview Press, 2004. A scholarly biography of the notorious yet celebrated Oskar Schindler was long overdue. Crowe scrutinizes the myths and realities of Schindler’s life, especially during the postwar period when he attempted to capitalize on his fame.

Fensch, Thomas, ed. Oskar Schindler and His List: The Man, the Book, the Film, the Holocaust, and Its Survivors. New York: P. S. Eriksson, 1995. Essentially a popular audience work, it contains essays, interviews, magazine articles, and a bibliography.

Keneally, Thomas. Schindler’s Ark. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982. Keneally’s work reads like a novel: The facts are accurate but the dialogue is approximate. The real Schindler is far less personable than Neeson’s character, and Schindler’s motives remain enigmatic, but his basic humanity comes through clearly.

Loshitzky, Yosefa, ed. Spielberg’s Holocaust: Critical Perspectives on “Schindler’s List.” Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997. The flaw of this work is clear from the title: Many of the essays are hypercritical of the movie. Fortunately, some of the essays (such as Omer Bartov’s) focus on the real strength of the film—the heightening of awareness of the Holocaust.

Robinson, Plater. “Schindler’s List” Teaching Guide. http://=www.southerninstitute.info/holocaust‗ education/schind.html. New Orleans: The Southern Institute for Education and Research at Tulane University, 1997. The film provides a basis for a study of anti-Semitic prejudice and of its consequences.