Schindler's List

Schindler’s List is an award winning film directed by Steven Spielberg. Schindler, played by Liam Neeson (pictured), is an unsuccessful businessman who comes to Sudetenland in hopes of making money off World War Two. He pushes his way into the Nazi world by bribing and entertaining several officials. Schindler opens a mess-kit factory and uses Jewish slave labor. He realizes that they are people too and begins his campaign to save as many as possible. He uses money from his business to bribe Nazi officials and protect his workers. He says that they are “essential” and this prevents them from being sent to concentration or death camps. The factory changes to making artillery shells, but for some reason none of the shells pass quality control. It is discovered that Schindler has been miss calibrating the machines so that his shells can’t be used to kill. Schindler transforms from a selfish businessman to a philanthropist. When the war ends, Schindler sets his workers free, and goes into hiding because the profiteers of slave labor were being imprisoned. Schindler saved over 1,000 Jews over the course of WWII, at a major expense to himself.

Power means the ability to do what you want. To Goethe it meant the ability to kill, whoever, without reason. He misused his power by killing innocent people, and he was brought to justice after the war by being hung. To Schindler it meant the power to save peoples lives. Both Schindler and Goethe had power through out the movie.

Schindler went from being an “antihero” to a hero when the man with one arm got shot. The man personally thanked Schindler for saving his life by employing him at the factory, but Nazi guards shot him in the street. This was the moment when Schindler realized that he had the power to save lives and by employing this power he became a hero.

I thought that this film was very effective. It showed how one man has the ability to change the world. Schindler saved over 1,000 Jews, while 6 million were slaughtered. This brought the grave situation of the Holocaust to the eyes of the mass public, and this made it very effective in the

spreading of knowledge about the Holocaust.