Review of Schindler's List (1993) by Robert E — 09 Apr 2016

Schindler's List is a movie that dives into the deepest recesses of man's ability of evil to the heights of mans ability to be compassionate to other humans. It open with the true story of the invasion of Poland by the German's Nazi war machine. There we see Oskar Schindler, a man with hopes and dreams of making money in the midst of the beginning of World War II. Along the way, he makes inroads with leading Nazi military commanders that are able to help him with contracts and workers. He begins employing the Jews of Poland as his workers through his accountant Itzhak Stern, who is in fact himself a Jew.

As the Jews are moved from the Ghettos of Poland to the Krakow concentration camp, Mr., Stern uses his position to hire as many workers from the Jewish population as he can. When it gets to the point of the prison being ready to shut down in 1944 towards the end of the war, rumors of shipping out the Jews to Auschwitz begin to circulate. Mr. Schindler, through movement of compassion for the Jews, realizes that he can use the money he has earned to buy the Jews and have them work for him instead of being shipped out.

The climactic, and human part of the story, is seeing life from the perspective of the Jews who were help in the concentration camp and the daily embarrassment and humiliation they faced daily at the hands of the SS and the camp comandant, Amon Goeth (played by Ralph Fiennes). The brutality and attempt at mass extermination of the Jews is put on display for the viewer in utter and complete detail.

Shoah is the biblical term for destruction and, in the case of the Jews, a reference to what occurred at this time period of the Jews at the hands of the Nazis in Europe. The total and complete attempt to wipe out the Jewish population at the hands of the Nazis seems to play into the hands of this term. At the same time, it also seems such an insignificant word to ascribe to the murder and genocide of 6 million Jews.

At the end of the movie, Schindler realizes that he could have done more to save 10 more, 2 more, even just one more and regrets his inability to such. Mr. Stern, after typing out the list of 850 names that Schindler bought from the Germans, says "The list is an absolute good. The list is life." The pivotal and heart wrenching wonderful scene is at the end when the actors portraying their roles in the movie, accompany the actual survivors to the tomb of Oskar Schindler and pay their respects to a man who showed compassion. It is estimated that Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jews from the gas chambers. Today the generations of those he saved is estimated at 7,000 because of his love.