Review of Schindler's List (1993) by Eri X — 21 Mar 2013

Having watched this movie 3 times it is and still remains one of the most emotion bringing movies I have ever watched. To sum up the plot of this intriguing movie that shows the horrors of all of our pasts, not as commonly mistaken just the Germans, Oskar Schindler sees a quick way to get rich during WWII. He starts by bribing his way through the ranks of the Nazis. He becomes well established and develops an accord with the Nazis. He uses the Jews, that are by this time housed in the Ghetto of Poland to run his factory. The man that is taking care of the financial running of the factory is the Jew Itzhak Stern, wonderfully portrait by Ben Kingsley. Itzhalk Stern is using his influence over Schindler to help some of the Jews to avoid deportation into a concentration camp. Schindler is aware but chooses to ignore this. His concern is money, and Stern is making a lot of it for him. Schindler witnesses injustices and cruel treatment of the Jews by the German soldiers, but still ignores all of this. The final solution for the Germans arrives and all the Jews are deported to a concentration camp or killed immediately. Schindler sees the men, women and children being slaughtered. He uses his inflluence to have some of his workers be allowed to remain working for him. He does not however get to keep Stern. Stern is now being used by the cruel concentration camp commander Amon Goeth. Schindler is beginning to see that this is no longer just a money making scheme for him. He is now emotionally involved. He sees that he needs to act quickly to save as many Jews as he can. He buys them from Amon Goeth, who he has won over. In the end he saves 100's of Jews.

The movie brought additional awareness of the injustices that have been put on the Jewish people for thousands of years. It shows how we as humans with just a little push can condemn a whole religious grouping. We all need to share in the responsibility of not only what happened to the Jews in Nazi Germany but also over all the past centuries. It seems that we see the Jews as our scapegoats anytime something goes wrong. We however are not God and do not get to decide if His chosen people need to be punished for not obeying His laws. We can never allow ourselves to forget the horrors that occurred.

We can never let anyone doubt that this did happen. Our hopes need to be this an atrocity as this will never occur again.