FREE ESSAY ON SCHINDLER'S LIST

SCHINDLER'S LIST

Schindler's List
Thomas Keneally's Schindler's List is the historical account of Oskar Schindler and his
heroic actions in the midst of the horrors of World War II Poland. Schindler's List
recounts the life of Oskar Schindler, and how he comes to Poland in search of material
wealth but leaves having saved the lives of over 1100 Jews who would most certainly have
perished. The novel focuses on how Schindler comes to the realization that concentration
and forced labor camps are wrong, and that many people were dying through no fault of
their own. This realization did not occur overnight, but gradually came to be as the
business man in Oskar Schindler turned into the savior of the Jews that had brought him
so much wealth. Schindler's List is not just a biography of Oskar Schindler, but it is
the story of how good can overcome evil and how charity can overcome greed.
Schindler's List begins with the early life of Oskar Schindler. The novel describes his
early family life in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his adolescence in the newly
created state of Czechoslovakia. It tells of his relationship with his father, and how
his father left his mother. His mother is also described in great detail. Like many
Germans in the south, she was a devout Catholic. She is described as being very troubled
that her son would take after her estranged husband with his negligence of Catholicism.
Oskar never forgave Hans, his father, for his abandonment of his mother , which is ironic
considering that Oskar would do the same with his wife Emilie. In fact Hans and Oskar
Schindler's lives would become so much in parallel that the novel describes their
relationship as that of brothers separated by the accident of paternity. Oskar's
relationship with Emilie is also described in detail as is their marriage. The heart of
the novel begins in October 1939 when Oskar Schindler comes to the Polish city of
Cracow.
It has been six weeks since the German's took the city, and Schindler sees great
opportunity as any entrepreneur would. For Schindler, Cracow represents a place of
unlimited possibilities because of the current economic disorder and cheap labor. Upon
his arrival in Cracow he meets Itzak Stern, a Jewish bookkeeper. Schindler is very
impressed with Stern because of his business prowess and his connections in the business
community. Soon Schindler and Stern are on their way to the creation of a factory that
would run on Jewish labor. Around this time, the persecution of the Jews of Poland begins
with their forced relocation into ghettoes. This turns out to be timely for Schindler as
now he is able to get very cheap labor. The next few years would go well for Schindler
and his factory for they turned a great profit. In fact he made so much money that he is
quoted as saying, I've made more money than I could possibly spend in a lifetime. His
workers were also very happy. This is because Schindler's Jews were treated as humans as
opposed to being treated as animals. For them, working in Schindler's factory was an
escape from the ghetto and from much German cruelty. They loved Schindler so much that
his factory became known as a haven throughout the Jewish community. However, things
began to go sour for Schindler, when the Germans ordered the liquidation of the ghettoes.
Soon all of the Jews in the Cracow ghetto were relocated to the Plaszow labor camp. By
this time Schindler had grown so affectionate toward his Jewish workers that he refused
to hire Poles, and instead sought of a way to keep using the Jews that he had grown so
accustomed to.
As the Cracow Jews were relocated to the Plaszow labor camp, Oskar Schindler came into
direct dealings with the camp's director, Amon Goeth. He did not like Amon, but he tried
to get in on his best side in order to keep using his Jews in his factory. Amon agreed to
let Schindler use them, and thus saving his Jews from some of the harshness of the
Plaszow labor camp. As the war began to go badly for the Germans, they decided to
accelerate their final solution by sending the Jews to more sinister concentration camps
such as Auchwitz. This is when Oskar Schindler finally comes to the realization that he
had the power to help his people. The now enlightened Schindler decides to use his entire
fortune to buy the lives of the Schindlerjuden in order to save them from the gas
chambers of Auchwitz.
This is how Schindler's list came to be. 1100 Jewish names that had in some way touched
his life were put on a list and bought. His plan was to send the 1100 Jews to his newly
created ammunitions factory in his native Czechoslovakia. However, Schindler's plan does
not go smoothly for an entire train load of his women were accidentally shipped to
Auchwitz instead of to his factory. Schindler then uses more of his diminishing financial
recourses to try to get his Jews out of Auchwitz. He succeeds in doing this, and thus the
Schindlerjuden have escaped the worse. Meanwhile in Czechoslovakia his plan continues in
that he tricks the Germans into thinking that they were going to produce quality
ammunition, but instead not one good shell was ever produced to help the German army.
Gratefully, within a few months Hitler was dead and the Germans were defeated.
Unfortunately, Oskar Schindler was now penniless for he had given everything in order to
save as many Jews as possible.
Thomas Keneally wrote Schindler's List to be more than just the story of a man and his
heroic deeds, but also to show today's world of the dangers of hatred. He emphasizes this
latter point through his descriptions of how cruelly the Nazis treated the Jews. Keneally
also tries to point out how one man can make a difference as is the case with Oskar
Schindler. However, perhaps Keneally's greatest objective with Schindler's List is that
the world should never forget Oskar Schindler and what he did for the Jews as well as for
mankind. Schindler's impact is so great that even the numerical facts are astonishing. In
fact if one compares the number of direct descendants of the Schindlerjuden to the number
of Jews alive in Poland after 1945, it is evident that there are more Schindlerjuden
today than the total number of Jews in 1945 Poland. This statistical fact shows how
greatly Schindler, who died in 1974, will be missed. Perhaps Keneally shares the
Schindlerjuden's remorse for their savior by the way he ends his novel. Keneally ends the
novel with the somber line, He was mourned on every continent.
Schindler's List had a great effect on me personally. I thought that Thomas Keneally did
an excellent job in making the reader feel the events of the time. Perhaps what I found
to be most interesting in Schindler's List is a question of morality. I began asking
myself the question, would I be as heroic as Oskar Schindler if I were in his shoes? I
think that this is exactly what Keneally wanted us to do; he wanted us to look at
ourselves and analyze what's inside. Historically, I find Schindler's List to be very
important not only because it is tells of a shameful time in western civilization, but
also because the events that took place in the novel occurred only yesterday. After all
fifty years is almost nothing in historical terms. Perhaps the novel's greatest strength
is this feeling that the events that transpired in Schindler's List are in fact modern
history.
Noli Bayani Jr.
Ba1-A26