I know we're well into February by now, but January 27th was Holocaust Remembrance Day, so I felt that I needed to honor that by watching a film that has been discussed by so many when it comes to representations of the Holocaust. I had this on my list and missed out on doing it earlier, but I still felt I needed to see this movie because of it's importance to human history. I've heard how beautifully it was shot, using color in very specific ways to draw attention to important moments or characters. It's a film that is said to be very intense and isn't easy to watch, so it's not unusual that I haven't seen it yet. The whole event is a heartbreaking period in the history of humanity, but we need to remember it so that we can ensure that it never happens again. The atrocities committed in that time against a specific religious group are things that we can never repeat if we want to evolve as an "enlightened society." Singling out a religion or race or any other grouping as something that is "other," "unworthy" or "not human" puts us in a place to justify the atrocious acts that have been committed against our fellow human beings. This is definitely a lesson that cannot be forgotten because it is far too common for people to spread hatred to others and it's far too rampant even now. The groups have changed nowadays, but the separation is still the same. Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it and we started shifting dangerously in that direction, more recently in the case of the LGBTQ+ community instead of the Jewish community. The rhetoric seems to have drifted to an "us" and "them" mentality and it's really pulling people apart. I know Schindler's List doesn't give you an all encompassing view of the Holocaust and WWII, but it does give you a peek at what a concentration camp was like and how scary it really was for the people who lived through it. I can only imagine the constant stress they must have been under and how a man like Schindler must have looked like a savior wrapped up in a package of a Nazi sympathizer. Schindler was a man who saved many in those camps by having them transferred to a factory he owned where they would work for him. A Nazi sympathizer realized that the treatment of these people was inhumane and did what small thing he could to save them. It's only a shame that in reality there weren't more people who did similar things. Apparently Schindler really did exist and he actually saved over a thousand people with his factory. A gift that every one of those people would remember for the rest of their lives and tell their families about. I guess it's time to watch the film and see what I've missed out on all these years.
Wow. So, if you really want a movie to dive deep into your heart and get all of your emotions tied up into it, this is your movie. This was masterfully created and molded to guide you through each level of horror that the Jews lived through during the Holocaust. It is heart wrenchingly beautiful and horrible. I knew of the horrors, seen the pictures, learned about it in school. Nothing you learn prepares you for the emotions you'll feel when you watch a perfect recreation of the levels of degradation and inhumane treatment all of those people had to live through. There were so many scenes that sunk your faith in humanity lower and lower until you can't even understand how they were justifying it to themselves anymore. I can't help but to sit here after watching this and mourn all that was lost during that time all over again. I remember seeing the pictures of the people who were barely skin on bones and thinking how horrible it was, but seeing the stages of losing your home, losing your belongings, losing your family then losing yourself hits an entirely different spot in your heart. You can empathize with someone with a picture, but the movie guides you through so many of their experiences and makes them so much more real to you. This has definitely left me a bit wrecked.
It's amazing how many things you can forget over the years after school is over. I remember learning about the Holocaust in History class and I remember being sad for the tragic loss of life of the six million Jews that died throughout the war. I remember feeling horrified at what one group was capable of doing to another group. It was complete extermination, like they were less than people. It caused unknown pain and warped so many people into a mindset of hating any Jew. There is still so much anti-Semitism rampant in the world, even now, 80 years later. I remember watching a documentary on Netflix called Struggle. It was about a Polish artist, Stanislaw Szukalski, who lived in Warsaw during the beginning of WWII. He lived his life in his later years believing that we are all descended from one people, that we should all find the truth of our combined heritage. He wasn't always of that mindset, though. During the war he believed that the Polish people should celebrate their heritage and close ranks from any outside influences, such as the Jews. He was a very vocal part of an entire movement. Even in this time, his message lives on in the people that took his words and ran with them. They use his name to justify their mentality, not understanding that he had turned from that path in his later years, seeing the error in his ways, learning that he was wrong. So, even when you change your mind and actions, the echoes of the past linger in the present. He left a message in the world for others to find, and find it they did. It's crazy to think that, since he never went back to Poland, they follow his doctrine and bolster their prejudice with it and they have never been corrected. At the end of Schindler's List, you are told that there are less than 4,000 Jews living in Poland today. It seems that the damage the war had done was far greater and lingered more than any could have expected.
The movie starts off with Oskar Schindler, portrayed by Liam Neeson, schmoozing up to some Nazi officials. He becomes friends with them and builds a name for himself. He comes up with this idea to build a factory with Jewish workers, using their money to fund it. It buys them the opportunity to keep jobs and stay out of the worst of conditions. He pays them back in goods that they can use or trade instead of paying them back with money. His contacts in the military give him the leeway he needs to make it all work. He begins making loads of money and starts expanding his business and his work force. It starts out as a way to get a cheap work force and to get the start up funds needed to get a business on the ground and profiting. As he saw the conditions get worse and worse for his workforce, he new he needed to do more. He becomes more empathetic to their plight and more invested in their well being. I love to see a story of people who shift their thinking because they learn that what they always thought was black and white wasn't as clear cut as it seemed. By the end of this story, though, he has truly learned the meaning of empathy. He cries that he didn't save any more. He saved over 1100 people, but he felt he could have saved more. Even if it was only ten more, or two more. He understood that each life has it's own special place in this world and he regretted the money he spent lavishly and obnoxiously, seeing what even a single one would have meant.
Some of the things that really gripped my heart for the sheer sadness of it was things like each family losing every single thing they owned. First, they're moved into a ghetto where they could only take what they could carry, having to choose between a lifetime of mementos to which ones were most important. Some people even took the family jewels and ate them to hide them from being taken from the family. They had to take extreme measures to protect their heritage. Others never even made it to the ghetto. Those in hospitals were given a poison to end their suffering before it could truly begin. They went out on their own terms in peace instead of suffering at the hands of the Nazi soldiers. Others hid from being relocated and tried to escape, but the Nazis were waiting for them. They waited until people crept out from their hiding places to slaughter them for daring to resist the creed laid down. It was such a cruel and harsh event that it's hard to believe that people would be capable of doing that to other human beings. I think that was the real horror of the entire war was the extent of the damage individuals were capable of doing to others. Treating these people worse than they would animals, like they were a plague on the earth that had to be eradicated. Schindler witnesses the cleaning of the streets of Jews and this is where you see the little girl in the red coat. I wonder what this little girl meant to him. Did she change him somehow? Did the reality of the situation sink in a little deeper by seeing the epitome of innocence walking through the horror filled streets? I wonder if she actually existed, if the real Oskar Schindler really saw her walking through the streets all alone, standing out in a sea of drab?
After adjusting to life in the ghetto, the remaining people are then shuffled into a train to be taken off to the next place. They pack all of their meager belongings and move it to the train station where they must leave their belongings, being told that they will meet them there. The suitcases never arrive, though. They are picked apart, separated out into what the world sees as valuable, such as jewels or metals, clothes that can be reused and things that are useless to the rest of the world, like family photos. Seeing all of these things being gone through with such an air of indifference, tossing aside the things that only have value to the family they were taken from broke me in a way that I can't even explain. Family history is incredibly important to me and to see their history taken from them was heart wrenching. I couldn't help but empathize with all of the Jews for losing their history first. It was only the first thing that they went through, but even just that alone would have been more than horrible. They arrive at the concentration camps and life changes dramatically for them.
There is so much going on in this movie. More than I could break down and write about in a short post. It's meant to be watched. It's meant to impact your emotions. It draws out some of the most horrific acts ever enacted against our fellow man and lays it out in a brutally honest way. You're forced to realize that the events that took place are far more terrible than you ever could imagine. Seeing the scene where Jews had to exhume their own dead from a mass grave only to have them burned afterwards leaves you feeling a bit hollow inside. It kills something inside of you knowing that real people went through this. Both the ones buried and dead and the ones digging them back up again. It definitely broke something in me to see it because I am a person who is extremely empathetic. Even now, just thinking back to that scene, has me welling up with tears for the pain and suffering that the Jews endured. My heart is broken for them. This is something that should have never been allowed in the first place, but did happen to such an unfathomable number of people. To think of the number of the dead, too... six million people... dead at the hands of the Nazis. It's a number beyond comprehension. That's the entire population for some small countries. To think that it took so long to stop it from happening. It's mind blowing.
Schindler wound up buying his workforce back from the concentration camps from a man who drank the Kool-Aid and bought into the mindset that they were lesser than everyone else. This German officer, portrayed by Ralph Fiennes, seemed to have no qualms whatsoever with the treatment of these people, even randomly shooting people when they seemed to be inefficient workers. How Schindler ever convinced him to let them go with a purchase is beyond me. Maybe it really was just the money, wars are expensive and even just feeding an army can bankrupt a country if the war carries on too long. It seemed he had a softness for at least one Jew, though. In the end, he even allowed Schindler to buy her just to get her away from the fate she was set to have with being a Jew in a German ruled nation. Schindler's empathy saved over 1,100 Jews from the concentration camps. What started as a business venture quickly turned into their only salvation.
At the end of the film, they show you the grave of Oskar Schindler and had the survivors visit the site. They paired the actor with their real-life counterpart. It was so touching to see each of these people, knowing which role they played in the story of the Holocaust, seeing that they lived the near 50 years beyond the events that changed our world forever. Even Schindler's wife, though they had divorced, still came to pay her respects. It was so heartwarming. And to know that there are 6,000 Jews around from that original 1,100 shows that even the greatest tragedies can blossom into new life. I'm sure their stories have been passed down to their children and their children. Now it's been nearly another 30 years and only the youngest of the survivors would still be alive anymore. I found that the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a talk with survivors every month that they share live on a YouTube channel and you can hear their stories and ask questions about their experiences throughout their lives. I know I'll be visiting for the next one, on March 16th, to hear her story and maybe ask a question about her life. I'm glad that I watched this film and I may watch it again in the future. I still have the DVD from the Library, so I'll have to watch the bonus features on the other discs because there has to be loads to take in with that. I highly recommend that everyone watch this movie at least once just so we can continue to remember that these events occurred and the horror that it was so that we can prevent it from ever happening again. Hatred is still quite rampant in our world and I can only hope that we can get past the darkness we're living through. "You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." Ever the eternal optimist here, I guess. These stories deserve to be remembered, though and this film will linger in my heart and mind. It's incredibly powerful. I heard so many people use that word when I told them I was going to watch this movie. Powerful. It's a perfect word for it, too. If you watch it, then you'll really understand. It changes you. Puts things into perspective. Leaves you wondering about the lives they left behind and the ones they built in the aftermath. They lost so much. So many loved ones gone. Unreasonable pain and suffering. We should all pray that we never see anything like this again in our future.
The next movie in my line up won't be an easy film, either. I'm going for The Color Purple. A film I know nothing about except that it's another intense film that isn't a light hearted comedy. Stay tuned!
For more movie love, check out my other blog, "You're Watching That Again?!"
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