Character transformation and morality in Schindler's List

¶ … Holocaust Studies

Main characters in Schindler's List

Oskar Schindler

During the Holocaust, Oskar Schindler who is a womanizer, war profiteer, and a Nazi member becomes the unexpected savior and hero of approximately 1,100 Polish Jews. He is a swindler and a moderately successful businessman who takes advantage of wartime to gain financial success. His business includes buying an enamelware factory previously owned by a Jew and using ingratiation and bribery to get contracts to make war supplies. At first, he was apathetic to the Jews, thinking that their situation was just a result of the war. He is a playboy who habitually cheats on his wife. He joined the Nazi party because he believes that it will help him make more money, and not for any ideological reason. According to the movie Schindler's List (2016), even though Oscar Schindler buys the factory that has been confiscated from Jewish owners and he is given an apartment that is seized from affluent Jews, he does not feel guilty nor is he grateful to the source of his immense fortune.

Itzhak Stern

Itzhak Stern is a bright and determined individual who reveals Schindler's moral side. His attitude towards Schindler reflects the main character's change throughout the story. From the very beginning, he can see Schindler's greed for money and callousness. He hates Schindler for being so, but he controlled his anger for him especially when he was originally offered to run the enamelware factory and get more Jewish investors. Itzhak shows his disdain for him by refusing to have a drink with him. However, when Schindler becomes active in saving the Schindlerjuden, he slowly sees the good in his employer and his attitude towards him becomes favorable. Eventually, when he learns of the closing of the Plaszow labor camp and realizes that Stern will definitely be put to death, convinced, finally has a drink with Schindler and become amiable to each other. According to Schindler's List (2016), Stern finally showed his respect for Schindler and Schindler accepted Stern's fate by having this drink.

Just like Schindler, Stern is also an opportunist and he is the mastermind behind the rescue of the Schindlerjuden. According to Schindler's List (2016), he was responsible for finding a way to save his fellow Jews from a forced labour for Schindler.

Amon Goeth

Amon Goeth is a sadist and a ruthless character who symbolizes the evil of the Nazi Party. He finds an authorized outlet for his cruelty in the Nazi military and represents the Third Reich's mindless evil and its "final solution." For him, Jews are pests who do not deserve basic human rights. Killing is but natural to him as he kills without being provoked and without hesitation. He is never good unlike Schindler. In spite of his consistent basic nature, he cannot be called a one-dimensional character as he is a conflicted and complicated person, too. He has a strong desire for his Jewish maid Helen Hirsch, which actor Ralph Fiennes skillfully demonstrated in the movie.

Helen Hirsch

Helen Hirsch is Amon Goeth's Jewish maid and object of his desire and aversion. She is a strong woman who lives a tortured life by being forced to work for Goeth whom she detests. Goeth inflicts so much physical violence on her that she begins to feel hopeless, accepting the fatality. According to Schindler's List (2016), she represents the victims of psychological abuse during the Nazi regime.

Accuracies

• On their way to work, Jews have been detained by SS squads to clear snow. Schindler went to SS headquarters in Pomorska to complain to his friend Toffel about the delay that it was causing him in his factory as his workers were absent. Sometimes, during the shoveling of the snow, Jews were shot or got deported in trucks. According to Keneally (1993), the SS man can choose to shoot people, especially Jews wantonly.

• Both the book and the movie showed almost exactly the same way how the Jews of Kazimierz moved. According to Keneally (1993), the movie depicted how the families packed their belongings and pushed barrows piled with all their stuff as they walk toward the ghetto. According to SLE, Accuracies (2013), just like what actually happened in reality, the movie also showed how their houses were given to high ranked SS officials.

• The movie also showed accurately how Jewish families oftentimes unknowingly shared rooms with other families or other people. According to SLE, Accuracies (2013), a woman would walk into a room and say to her husband, "it's not that bad," and his husband would answer resignedly, "how can it possibly be worse" as another family enters the small room.

• The establishment of the Judenrat's own police force called the Ordnungdienst (OD) was also shown in the movie. They are described as good to their fellow Jews. According to SLE, Accuracies (2013), as said in the left-outs, these OD members, as well as their families, were unfortunately, shot after the transition to Plaszow from the ghetto.

Characters most believable or accurate in the historical role

It has been known for quite a long time that in the late 1930's Schindler was a spy for German counterintelligence. However, according to Mr. Crowe, Schindler was "a spy of big caliber and an especially dangerous type" based on Czech secret police archives. He also said that Schindler was imprisoned because he put the Czechoslovak security in jeopardy before the Nazi invasion. The Czechoslovak government attempted to prosecute him for war crimes. According to Smith (2004), Schindler was actually the leader of a unit that organized the invasion of Poland by the Nazi army.

Oskar Schindler who is a big and charming man was depicted in the film and the novel as a womanizer and a drinker. According to Mr. Crowe, he also ignored his two illegitimate children. The book and film also briefly mentioned the rumors that Schindler stole Jewish property and ordered to beat Jews after he moved to Krakow in 1939 and worked as a carpetbagger following the Nazi invasion. Mr. Crowe found out that although the charges were not proven, Yadvashem was so anxious about it that it delayed calling Schindler a good gentile.

Based on the film's epilogue, Schindler was named in 1958 and died 16 years later in 1974. On the other hand, Mr. Crowe discovered that it was in 1993 that he was officially named when Yadvashem found out that Emilie who also showed heroism during the Holocaust, was coming to Jerusalem to be a part of the film. According to Smith (2004), both of them received the honor.

Would you recommend this film as a historical document to enhance understanding of history? Why or why not?

It is known that Hollywood is unable to depict historical events accurately and "Schindler's List" is not an exception. Only naive, senile or those with distorted worldview would expect Hollywood to make a historically accurate film. Thus, it is but expected to be Spielberg's least concern to know whether Schindler was a Zionist agent or not. Also, Speilberg would not want to make his examination of Schindler's character by looking closely at his behavior after the war and the despicable way he treats his wife. According to Raven (1994), it is easier to tell the story by avoiding these issues, but it would lessen the film's historical accuracy.

It does not matter whether "Schindler's List" is true or not, but there are several unexplainable scenes in the film and Spielberg did not do his best to explain them. For example, when the Jews are being relocated to the Krakow ghetto, there was a bag of gold-inlaid teeth in the luggage sorting area. How this bag ends up in the city is a mystery, unless we think that one of the Jews brought them, but that is definitely not what Spielberg wanted to imply. According to Raven (1994), there was an implication that human body burns like firewood, which is wrong. Indeed, later in the story, a collection of burning corpses at the Plaszow camp was shown to be so huge that a conveyor belt was required to add bodies to the top of the pile.

Spielberg referred to facts in a fictional manner, thus blurring the thin line between fiction and fact. In the movie, for example, Stern used the phrase "special treatment" as if it refers to "death" alone, even though the very same phrase had been previously used by Schindler in a totally favorable context. According to Raven (1994), typhus and lice were also depicted as not major concerns but just minor inconveniences. In conclusion, I would not recommend this movie to anyone.