Schindler's List: The List That Can Save a Life

Loyalty to your race or humane conscience? What would you choose? Oskar Schindler faced this dilemma in the 1993 movie Schindler’s List.

This critically acclaimed movie directed by Steven Spielberg talks about the story of Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), an ethnic German businessman who transfers to the city and becomes a war profiteer. He bribes Nazi officials so that he would be allowed to employ Jewish citizens. He meets and befriends Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), a cruel lieutenant of the SS. Unknowingly, he grows attached to his workers and when he learns that the Jews would be sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp, he tries to save as many of them as possible.

However, a problem arose when the train of Schindler’s Jewish women workers was inadvertently redirected to Auschwitz. Schindler immediately goes to the camp commander and bribes him to release the women workers. As the war ended, Schindler and his wife were forced to flee to evade the Red Army. His workers fashioned him a ring which a Talmudic quotation was engraved. “Whoever saves a life saves the world entire.” Schindler cried, apologized and regretted why he was unable to save more.

The movie’s theme, for me, is that friendship and brotherhood/sisterhood knows no race. However intense the Jew’s hatred for the Germans is, because of his heroism ad charity, they’ve grown attached to Schindler. In Schindler’s case, he did not conform with society’s norm, which was to loathe the Jews. At first, he was non-committal but eventually, he learned to love the Jews and respect their traditions.

I was so focused in understanding alone the movie that I failed to note more symbols. One of the obvious ones was the girl in the red coat. She symbolized hope for the Jews and when she was found dead, it seemed like hope for the Jews was also gone. The ring given by the Jews to Schindler symbolizes their heartfelt thanks to him for saving their lives even though they belong to conflicting races. Schindler’s factory also served as a haven for the Jews. They see the factory as their home because in there, they were treated fairly compared to the people in the concentration camps. The child who hid in the makeshift septic tank also symbolized abused innocence.

For me, the movie was an A. There were some scenes where I could just say, “Whoa. What??!” This is because they were confusing but the following scenes explained the movie better. They were also a lot of violent scenes that even disturbed mature college students like us so I do not recommend you watch it with children.

Still, the movie lets us get in touch with one of the world’s most devastating wars. It made us see that not all Germans that time were vile. Some of them refused to be eaten by the cruel system.