Schindler’s List

1. Schindler’s List

2. Discussion Questions • 1. Why do you think, did Schindler risk his life to save Jews? Did he do it to please other or to please himself?

3. Discussion Questions • What was the role of Itsak Stern? Was his relationship to (and with) Schindler more than employer-employee? What examples are there in the film of Itzhak Stern pushing Schindler in the direction of rescue?

4. Discussion Questions • When does Schindler Make the decision to rescue Jews?

5. Discussion Questions • In the film, the Nazi commandant Goeth describes Jewish people as “vermin” and “rats”. What purpose did language serve? Give other examples of language used in the film to describe Jewish people. How do you and your their friends describe a different ethnic group? In your environment, how does language reflect the feelings of a person towards a different group?

6. Discussion Question • Why did the Jews not resist?

7. Discussion Question • What does the girl in red symbolize?Why did Spielberg produce a black and white film in the first place? Why did he employ the color red in the case of the little girl? In what other instances in the film did Spielberg use color? Why?

8. Discussion Question • Why did it take Schindler so long to realize the full implications of the Nazis’ “final solution of the Jewish question?” What earlier examples were there which, in retrospect, might have alerted Schindler (and others) to the Nazi intentions?

9. Discussion Question • Discuss Emelie Schindler’s role. Why do you suppose Spielberg represented her as he did? What does her portrayal tell us about Emelie and Oskar as individuals and as a couple?

10. Discussion Question • What is the central theme of the film, Schindler’s List?

11. Discussion Question • If the Nazi Goeth had been brought to trial before you, claiming that he was only following orders, what would your decision have been and why?

12. Discussion Questions • Schindler risked his life in order to save Jews. It was a time when terror reigned. The Jews had been dehumanized in non-Jewish eyes by Nazi propaganda and brutality. Tom Keneally, the author of the book Schindler's Ark, quotes Schindler as having said that "A life is not worth a pack of cigarettes." Yet Schindler risked his own life. Why?

13. Possible Influences on Schindler • Schindler was an adventurer. He enjoyed participating in exciting activities, for example, his motor cycle riding in earlier years. It might be argued that Schindler liked living on the edge. In this sense, rescue of Jews appealed to him. He also appeared to be the type of person who liked to manipulate events, or feel like he was manipulating events.

14. Maybe? • Schindler might have been influenced by "a parental model of moral conduct." His mother, a devout woman, was apparently a beacon of moral conduct. Itzhak Stern, the accountant, was also an important moral influence. To repeat, when Stern died in 1969, Schindler wept at his grave.

15. Maybe? • It might be said (using Nechama Tec's point) that Schindler lived on "the periphery" of the German community in Krakow. As a Sudeten German, a German from Czechoslovakia, he was an "outsider" not as heavily influenced by Nazi propaganda and not bound to typical ways. Thus, the argument follows, Schindler could see things with a measure of independence. He was not compelled, for psychological reasons, to conform to the existing behavior, that is, to the dehumanization and extermination of the Jews.

16. Discussion Question • Compare and contrast each of these quotes. Which one do you think most accurately explains Schindler's reason for assisting the Jews? How are the quotes different from one another? Similar?

17. Quote One • Twenty years after the war, Mosche Bejski, a Schindlerjuden and later a Supreme Court justice in Israel, asked Schindler why he did it? Schindler replied, "I knew the people who worked for me. When you know people, you have to behave towards them like human beings."

18. Quote Two • The same question was asked by Poldek Pfefferberg, another Schindlerjuden. Schindler answered, "There was no choice. If you saw a dog going to be crushed under a car, wouldn't you help him?"

19. Quote Three • In a 1964 interview, standing in front of his dingy Frankfurt apartment, Schindler said, "The persecution of Jews in occupied Poland meant that we could see horror emerging gradually in many ways. In 1939, they were forced to wear Jewish stars, and people were herded and shut up into ghettos. Then, in the years '41 and '42 there was plenty of public evidence of pure sadism. With people behaving like pigs, I felt the Jews were being destroyed. I had to help them. There was no choice."

20. Staub’s Analysis • Ervin Staub, a Holocaust survivor from Hungary and a scholar on altruistic behavior, has written, "Goodness, like evil, often begins in small steps. Heroes evolve; they aren't born. Very often the recuers make only a small commitment at the start, to hide someone for a day or two. But once they had taken that step, they began to see themselves differently, as someone who helps. What starts as mere willingness becomes intense involvement."

21. Discussion Question • Does Staub's argument apply to Schindler? When do you think Schindler make the decision to rescue the Jews? When does he take the first step?

22. Answer…We Don’t Know • We do know…Schindler did not come to Krakow to save Jews. He came to turn a profit, and Jews became a part of the bargain. It might be argued that his ideas about rescue evolved. In the book, Keneally writes that Schindler made the first tentative step towards assisting the Jews on December 3, 1939. He whispered unambiguous words into Stern's ear: "Tomorrow, it's going to start. Jozefa and Izaaka Streets are going to know all about it." He was referring to a SS Aktion which did indeed occur. It was a small step in the direction of rescue, but it was a step in that direction nonetheless.

23. What do you think? • It is possible that Schindler was trapped by his own words which, on occasion, slipped out with little forethought. In Keneally's book, Schindler is quoted as saying to the first batch of Jewish workers who arrived at his factory, "You'll be safe working here. If you work here then you'll live through the war." The Jews did not believe he could possibly make good on that promise. Did he believe it?

24. Schindler’s Ark • Schindler's List is a 1993 American film directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg and scripted by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the novel Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally, an Australian novelist. The film tells the story of Oscar Schindler, a  German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories.

25. Oskar Schindler Fact • Oskar Schindler was born into a wealthy business family on 28 April 1908 in Zwittau, now Svitavy, Bohemia, which was then part of Austria-Hungary, but is now the Czech Republic. • Because he was a businessman, he initially sought to profit from the German invasion of Poland in 1939 by buying a factory in Krakow at a low price and employing Jews as cheap labour. • Schindler began to hide wealthy Jewish investors, possibly for profit, but later he began shielding his workers without regard to cost. • He witnessed a 1942 raid on the Kraków Ghetto, where soldiers shipped the ghetto inhabitants to the concentration camp at Plaszow, and was appalled by the murder of many Jews who had tried to hide. Because of this, he worked to transfer the Jews to a safer place. • Schindler used his skills of persuasive speech and his money to bribe government officials to avoid being investigated. He spent millions to protect and save the Jews. • After the war, Schindler emigrated to Argentina, but returned to Germany in 1958, bankrupt. • Schindler died in Germany on 9 October 1974, at the age of 66. His cause death is variously cited as being stroke or liver failure.

26. Oskar Schindler

27. Schindler’s Childhood • As a child, Schindler was popular and had many friends, but he was not an exceptional student. Among his childhood playmates were the two sons of a local rabbi.

28. Schindler gets Married • During the 1920s Schindler worked for his father selling farm equipment. In 1928, however, the young man's marriage to a woman named Emilie caused problems in the relationship between the two men and Schindler left his father's business to work as a sales manager for a Moravian electric company.

29. Sudetenland • Meanwhile, the political landscape in Europe was undergoing major changes, especially in Germany, where Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) and his Nazi Party began their rise to power. Hitler began stirring up ethnic feelings among the Sudeten Germans, pointing out that their "rightful" ties were with Germany, not Czechoslovakia. By 1935 many Sudeten Germans joined the pro-Nazi Sudeten German Party. Schindler joined, too—not out of any love for the Nazis, but because it made business sense to go along with the prevailing wind.

30. Sudetenland was taken from Germany after WWI.

31. Schindler wastes no time after war on Poland was declared. • On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, prompting Great Britain and France to declare war on Germany. Within a week, Schindler arrived in Krakow, Poland, eager to find a way to profit from the conflict in one way or another.

32. Krakow, Poland • In mid-October, the city became the new seat (central location) of government for all of Nazi-occupied Poland. 

35. September 1939 • About 150,000 to 200,000 Polish civilians were killed during the one-month September Campaign,[15] characterized by the indiscriminate and often deliberate targeting of civilians by the invading forces of Nazi Germany[16] and the Soviet Union.[17] Many of them were killed in the Luftwaffe's terror bombing operations, like those at Wieluń.[18] Massive air raids were conducted on towns which had no military infrastructure.[19] Columns of fleeing refugees were systematically attacked by the German fighter and dive-bomber aircraft.[20] The town of Frampol, near Lublin, was heavily bombed on 13 September as a test subject for Luftwaffe bombing technique. Chosen because of its grid street plan and an easily recognisable central town hall the town was hit by 700 tonnes of munitions which destroyed up to 90% of the town and killed half of its inhabitants.[21] • From the first day of the war, the round-ups and summary executions of Poles were conducted by all German forces without exception including Wehrmacht, Gestapo, SS and Selbstschutz. Several thousand Polish prisoners of war (POWs) were also murdered in violation of international agreements.[22]

36. Schindler makes nice with Germans. • Schindler quickly created friendships with key officers in both the Wehrmacht (the German army) and the SS (the special armed Nazi unit), offering them black-market (illegal) goods such as cognac and cigars.

40. Itzhak Stern • It was around this same time that he met Itzhak Stern, a Jewish accountant who would eventually help his relations with the local Jewish business community. Schindler purchased a bankrupt kitchenware factory and opened it in January 1940. Stern was hired on as the bookkeeper and soon developed a close relationship with his employer.

41. 1962 Stern Interview • Testimony of Yitzhak Stern • Yitzhak Stern, May 1962, at a meeting of Schindler’s survivors with their rescuer in Israel • ….One could go on and on telling about Oscar Schindler. I was asked to be brief and to speak in Yiddish. I will try to comply and speak telegraphically. But will I succeed? • I met Schindler on 18 November 1939 when he came to see his friend, the administrator of the firm we had worked for….Schindler would come from time to time to this firm. When I first met him, and he extended his hand to me, I said “I’m a Jew” – because a Jew had to announce he was a Jews when talking to a German. Schindler dismissed this and said “nonsense. Why do you say this. Why do you remind me that I’m a German. Don’t I already know it?.” 

42. Stern: Schindler Visits • Every time he visited, he would come to my office  and talk to me. More than once would people argue with me and my colleagues were afraid of Schindler and warned me not to refrain from polemics with him. I was afraid too, but there was something special about Schindler. His conduct to me was totally different from that of other Germans. Schindler’s conduct was revealed the first time when he came to the office of my firm on 4 December 1939, well dressed, very German and radiating power. Upon entering he yelled: “Tomorrow is the beginning – all the houses from the Jewish quarter to a certain point will be encircled and there will be a lot going on.” (until that time there was yet no ghetto and Jews lived all over the city.) We didn’t pay attention to what he said; we didn’t believe him; but the same night everything happened as Schindler had predicted. All Jewish homes until a certain place were encircled. They began to search for people, and many were murdered in their homes and in the synagogues. AS you probably remember, the pogrom went on for several days and Jews were forbidden to be outside. After our return to work we remembered: “Schindler had told us all about the plans, and we, stupid people, didn’t pay attention”.

43. What is happening… • By the spring of 1940, the Nazi crack-down against Jews had begun. Schindler was ordered to pay his Jewish employees' wages directly to the SS rather than to the workers themselves. In August Nazi authorities issued a new regulation ordering all but "work-essential" Jews to leave the city. This sparked the panic that sent Jews scrambling for work that would be considered "essential."

44. Girl in the Red Coat

45. Girl in the Red Coat • While the film is shot primarily in black-and-white, red is used to distinguish a little girl in a coat (portrayed by OliwiaDabrowska). Later in the film, the girl appears to be one of the dead Jewish people, recognizable only by the red coat she is still wearing. Although it was unintentional, this character is coincidentally very similar to Roma Ligocka who was known in the Krakow Ghetto for her red coat. Ligocka, unlike her fictional counterpart, survived the Holocaust. After the film was released, she wrote and published her own story, The Girl in the Red Coat: A Memoir (2002, in translation). The scene, however, was constructed on the memories of ZeligBurkhut, survivor of Plaszow (and other work camps). When interviewed by Spielberg before the film was made, Burkhut told of a young girl wearing a pink coat, no older than four, who was shot by a Nazi officer right before his eyes. When being interviewed he said "it is something that stays with you forever." • According to Andy Patrizio of IGN, the girl in the red coat is used to indicate that Schindler has changed: "Spielberg put a twist on her [Ligocka's] story, turning her into one more pile on the cart of corpses to be incinerated. The look on Schindler's face is unmistakable. Minutes earlier, he saw the ash and soot of burning corpses piling up on his car as just an annoyance." Andre Caron wondered whether it was done "to symbolize innocence, hope or the red blood of the Jewish people being sacrificed in the horror of the Holocaust?"

46. What is happening… • In June of 1942, the Nazis began relocating Krakow's Jews to labor camps. Some of Schindler's workers, including his office manager, were among the first group of people ordered to report to the train station. Schindler raced to the station and argued with an SS officer about how essential his workers were to the war effort. By dropping the names of some of his Nazi friends and making a couple of threats, he was finally able to rescue the workers and escort them safely back to his factory.

47. Amon Goethe • Amon Goeth, commandant of the Plaszow camp. Plaszow, Poland, between February 1943 and September 1944.

50. What is happening… • In early 1943 the Nazis ordered the final "liquidation" of the Krakow ghetto. The man put in charge of the operation was a young SS officer named AmonGoeth, the commandant of the Plaszow forced labor camp just outside the city. Jews who were healthy and could work were sent to Plaszow and the rest were sent off to death camps or executed on the spot. When Goeth announced that local industries would be moved inside Plaszow, Schindler proposed establishing a labor mini-camp within his factory that would continue to employ his own workers. Goeth agreed after Schindler bribed him.