“”05-27-04 The Holocaust was a long and unspeakable time, which caused millions of Jewish deaths. The main goal of the Holocaust was basically to get rid of every Jewish person alive because of the hatred and jealousy towards them. The Germans saw the Jews as worthless job stealers. Oskar Schindler was a huge part of the Holocaust and saved hundreds of Jewish families. He was a German businessman who wanted to start a company during this dreadful time.
Thus, he found a Jewish accountant to help him start his company, which consisted of Jews making pots and pans for the Germans. They worked for no pay but Oskar’s company saved their lives a good proportion of the time. When Schindler’s Jews were close to being killed, they showed in the movie, Schindler’s List how Oskar would usually say, “You can’t kill my essential workers.” In Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg portrays Oskar Schindler very realistically because he wants to keep the movie as realistic as possible, compared to the book, Schindler’s List and actual Holocaust. In the beginning of the Holocaust, March 1943, there was liquidation in the ghetto and the Germans ran through Krakow and killed as many Jews as they found because of their order to make the Jews vanished (Woggon I). The Germans basically just chose any house they saw, marched into it and killed every Jew living inside.
They continued 2 to do so until almost all the Jews they could find were murdered. In April, Goeth, one of the German leaders, received orders for the living Jews to burn the 10,000 Jews killed in Plaszow (Woggon I). In 1943 hundreds of children, old and sick were killed and 2,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz (Woggon 2). The sick and old people were the first to be shot because they were weak and “twice as worthless.” The Jews waited for the orders to be sent to the deportation camps.
When the Germans pack the trains, they accidentally put Schindler’s most important secretary onto it. Schindler is extremely worried and goes to the train station right away to rescue him. He warns a soldier to find his secretary or else he would be in huge trouble and so the soldier followed his commands. When Oskar found his accountant he yelled at him because Oskar could have lost everything his Secretary had done for him with the money.
When the Jews were dehydrating in the train and dying for water, Schindler told the Germans to spray all the train carts with garden hoses. The Germans thought this was just his way of torture but Schindler was actually helping. The Jews that remained alive continued with the torturous orders given by the Germans. All the Jews were now at death camps and could be shot at any random site. When the thousands of Jews were shipped off to the concentration camps, their entire luggage was stolen and taken by the Germans (Woggon 1).
The Germans just took the luggages and emptied out, every single item from every luggage bag. Once they emptied everything out they looked for gold and all kinds of jewelry they could make good money out of. The Jews couldn’t say anything about this, so they avoided the situation of their 3 property missing. Although, everyone finally had hope when Camp Brunnlitz was liberated and Goeth was hanged in Krakow (Woggon 3). As Oskar saw all these murderers, he thought of plenty of ways to save his workers.
The Schindler Jews basically saw Oskar as their only hope. He helped them when he was able to and kept them protected in his building by offering the Jews jobs at his factory. When Jews heard of Schindler for the first time they heard of a speculator and charmer (Keneally 9). There were orders given day after day for the Jews to evacuate. All the Russian were coming closer to Plaszow.
Schindler started his company around that exact time. For all of Schindler’s work, his friend, one of his Jewish workers, gave Oskar a golden ring that had an inscription that said, “He who saves a single life saves the entire world.” By 1944 Schindler made a list of workers he really needed, “essential workers he couldn’t exist without.” (Woggon 2) These were his hardest workers who produced his products the best. All day the Jews made pots and pans and products for the Germans. Sometimes the Germans inspected how hard the Jews were working in Schindler’s Factory. If the Jews were slacking off or not doing their job fast enough, the Germans would kill them. Also, if the Germans found a handicapped Jew or a really old Jew, they would shoot them because of there “uselessness.” Schindler’s factory was hurt by a series of harsh winters and had closed down at certain times because of the machines being unable to work (Keneally 362).
4 Spielberg’s Dramatic movie, “Schindler’s List,” was the main talk of 1993. Movie critics had said, “It was simply the most commercially successful movie ever.” Schindler’s List was an examination of the Nazi Holocaust but it also carried within it an almost unbearably delicate observation of human pain by being in black and white (Appelo 1). The movie didn’t show every single detail but the quick deaths left you in shock most of the time. The boldness of Schindler’s conception is a masterpiece and an achievement like this is very unlikely to be duplicated.
(Appelo 1)”The Polish setting was part of the perfection, the ground is covered with blood like a walk on tombstones says, actor Sagal.” The setting gave it most of the reality. Spielberg made a true masterpiece by making this movie so accurately based on the Holocaust. He chose to keep just about every detail there was in reality. By portraying the true story of a German businessman who saved more than 1,000 Jews during the Holocaust, Spielberg appears determined to prove he can make a movie that will defy all expectations. In and around Cracow, Poland, Spielberg was making maximum use of original sites such as narrow streets in the cities old Jewish quarter and the entrance to Schindler’s Factory because of the realistic scenes. The connection is with the stories he has heard and remembered since childhood of relatives who died in the Holocaust, with the film allowing him to chronicle the horrors of the period.
By focusing in on Schindler he also explores complex human behavior, “he wasn’t a classic saint,” meaning he was the opposite of the Jew’s enemies. Those Jews that have visited the set found themselves ill prepared to confront the authencity of the re-creation of their 5 wartime traumas (Nagorski 1). Spielberg had made a true classic from this movie. The scenes were so realistic that there were little to absolutely no differences!
