Schindler

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Schindlers List
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Oskar Schindler

• He was a German from Czechoslovakia
• Born in 1908
• Raised a strict catholic
• There were Jews in his class at school
• He lived next door to a rabbi growing up
• Before the war, he was a small time salesman and
  not very successful

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What kind of man was Schindler

• People called him
• A swindler
• Der grosse Lebemann (Emilie Schindler, his
  wife), a man who loves to live life to its
  fullest.
• Charming, vain, handsome, womanizer, alcoholic,
  flamboyant, gambler, risk taker
• Loved living life on the edge, and to be the
  center of attention
• Liked to play the playboy spy.

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How did the Germans see him

• For the Nazi party, he was a party member since
  1939.
• He was a loyal agent for military intelligence.
• He was used as a spy. He provided for the war
  effort.
• He provided Polish army uniforms to German
  provocateurs who attacked a German border radio
  station the night before the invasion of Poland.
  The station was said to have been overrun by
  Polish soldiers. Actually, it was Germans
  dressed as Poles. This provided an excuse to
  invade.

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Schindler during the war

• Was arrested repeatedly (3 times by the SS).
• Usually arrested for black market fraud.
• His connections always got him out.
• He ended up being the only German to save more
  than 1,000 Jews from the death camps.

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Quote from Interview with Spielberg

• The Quote is about adapting the film from the
  novel.
• The difficulty was what we could not use because
  we just did not have time to use it. . . . I had
  to . . . Find a way of taking the novel, and not
  so much distill it, but just find all the moments
  that moved me the most and were the most
  informative.

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Quote from Interview with Spielberg (Continued)

• In the process of Schindlers almost transparent
  transformation from a businessman to a savior,
  the novel did not give me those clues. It did
  not tell me why Schindler did it. And none of
  the witnesses could tell me why Schindler did it,
  even though I asked everybody I met.

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Schindlers motivation

• Point of some debate among the Schindler Jews.
• Some said he was an opportunist who saved the
  Jews because it was self-serving, or because he
  loved to outwit the SS.
• Others believed his motivation to be purely to
  save lives.
• But for most of the Schindler Jews, they simply
  know that he saved them and that is all that
  matters.

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The Change of Heart

• One survivor claims he witnessed Schindlers
  change of heart.
• After seeing Goeth shoot two girls shortly before
  they died from hanging, Schindler got ill in
  front of everyone, turned to the survivor and
  stated that he would never work for the Germans
  again.

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He did show his Jews kindness

• He permitted them to observe holidays.
• He went to great lengths to make them feel safe.
• He slept in the factory himself, although a villa
  was available in Brinnlitz.
• He provided extra food and medicine.
• Some of this is portrayed in the film.

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History vs. the Film

• At the end of the war, Schindler had to flee
  because the Russians would have shot him without
  a trial.
• Some of his Jewish workers smuggled him out as a
  camp survivor.
• Unlike the film portrayal, however, he escaped in
  a Mercedes full of valuables.
• These were later looted and stripped from him and
  he arrived with nothing in the American zone.

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While with the Americans

• He gave American investigators evidence against
  his former Nazi drinking buddies.
• American Jews helped get him to Switzerland.

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After the war

• He lived in different parts of West Germany.
• He lived for a time with Jews in Argentina.
• His grand schemes never worked out.
• He was at his best during war time.
• He lived in Israel for a time and was celebrated,
  and bestowed the title of righteous gentile. A
  tree was planted for him in the avenue of the
  righteous.
• When he returned to Germany, he lived in poverty
  and obscurity.

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Schindlers death

• He died at age 66 of a failed heart and liver.
• He was buried in Israel in 1974.
• His grave is shown in the film at the end.

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Krakow

• The story takes place in Krakow.
• 26 of the population was Jewish.
• Shows the Krakow-Plaszow labor camp.
• In Krakow during the Holocaust, the Jews invited
  a wall around their ghetto to protect them from
  Polish citizens.
• Krakow was a bastion of Jewish culture, but also
  of anti-Semitism.
• The Jews thought of the walls as a fortress
  against anti-Semitism.

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Krakow

• When the Nazis came, the Jews almost willingly
  moved to the ghetto.
• They expected to need their fortress, they knew
  that there was a great deal of hatred toward them
  in the Polish population.

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The Accuracy of the Film

• Everywhere the Schindler Jews got preferential
  treatment. Accurate.
• Shows Brinnlitz, Czechoslovakia
• Near Schindlers home town.
• The film shows this accurately, shows the stops
  on the way there, except that the men also
  stopped in Groess-Rosen for a week.
• The women were in Auschwitz for 3 weeks.
  Schindler had to bribe their way out.

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The List

• The list had 297 women and 800 men on it.
• The first list made was not very accurate and
  hastily made.
• Schindler added 80 names from a frozen
  transport, a transport from an Auschwitz
  subcamp. They were left in the cold for 10 days
  with no food or water.
• So he saved more people than just his workers.

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The List

• The list was actually made by Marcel Goldberg,
  the greedy Jewish policeman in the film.
• This was the source of much bitterness.
• Only those who bribed him got on the list.
• Schindler said, he did not have the time to
  constantly check up on him.
• Some survivors threatened Schindler because of
  this.

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The Film

• It took more than a decade to prepare to make the
  film.
• The shooting of the film was done in actual
  locations.
• The interior and exterior of Schindlers
  apartment.
• The interior and exterior of the prison.
• Almost every place was authentic.
• The Plaszow camp was recreated.
• The shot in Auschwitz had to be shot outside the
  gate because of resistance to having a film shot
  inside.

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Steven Spielberg

• The worlds most commercially successful film
  maker.
• Perhaps best known for Jurasic Park and Indiana
  Jones.
• For him, the film was a personal reawakening of
  his Jewish faith.
• He found a great deal of anti-Semitism exists in
  Poland still today. There were several incidents.

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Poland

• Very few Jews live in Poland today.
• Because of the anti-Semitism that still exists
  there, Jews do not want to return.
• Unfortunately, Hitler was especially successful
  in murdering most of the eastern European Jews.

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Discussion Questions

• How does this film compare to other films we have
  seen so far?
• How does it use imagery and color?
• What techniques does the film maker use?
• Is the film successful in representing the
  Holocaust? Why or why not?
• How is Schindler established as a character?

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Discussion Questions

• How is the changing relationship with Stern
  depicted?
• What does the scene in which Schindler moves into
  his apartment represent?
• How does the film show the bureaucracy, the
  obsession with order, that characterized the
  Holocaust?

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Discussion Questions

• What is the function of the scene in which
  Schindler chooses a secretary?
• What is the function of the scene in which he is
  speaking to his wife about being remembered as
  the man who came with nothing and left with two
  steamer trucks filled with all the riches of the
  world?

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Discussion Questions

• What is the function of the scene in which he is
  confronted with the gratitude of the one armed
  man?
• What does the scene in which Stern is almost
  taken to a camp show?
• What is the relationship between Helen Hirsch and
  Goeth like? How does he feel about her? What
  does this show?

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Discussion Questions

• What does Goeth say about history? Today is
  history? What does he mean by that and why is it
  in the film?
• What is the relationship between Goeth and
  Schindler? Are they alike? What do they think
  of each other?
• Does the film portray a turning point for
  Schindler? Or is there more than one? Does one
  stand out? Why does it stand out? What
  techniques does the film maker employ to make it
  stand out?

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Discussion Questions

• What is the significance of the scene in which
  the rabbi making hinges is almost shot?
• At one point Schindler begins to get rather
  brazen with his requests to help the Jews.
  Especially during the train episode in which he
  helps them get water. What does this scene show
  about his position among the Nazis?
• What do you think of the scene in Schindlers
  List in which he is given the ring?

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Discussion Questions

• Why does he put on a camp uniform when he leaves
  the camp?
• Who are the people putting stones on Schindlers
  grave in Israel?