Schindler's List

Schindler's List

"I knew the people who worked for me. When you know people, you have to behave towards them like human beings." This was a quote from Oskar Schindler. However, throughout the movie, it didn't quite seem like he felt that way the entire time.

The movie began in 1939, and Schindler was very into alcohol, womanizing, and making money. He bought a Jewish factory in Krakow called Deutsche Email Fabrik. In order get the resources necessary; he talked to his key contact throughout the entire movie, a Jewish accountant by the name of Itzhak Stern. Stern informed him that Jewish labor was cheaper than Polish Labor. Schindler, of course being interested in having a higher profit, went and hired the Jews, thus beginning his relationship with them. The produced pots, pans, basins, and other items as such, and then later on, munitions.

At certain points in the movie, it was hard to tell that he was changing. At certain moments, it seemed like he was, but then the next second, he would turn around and act the same as he always did. Such as when Stern brought in the one-armed Jew to thank him for giving him a job, and while he was there, he seemed happy to be able to be helping this man, but as soon as the man left, he turned around to Stern and said, "Don't ever do that to me again. That man has one arm, he is of no use."

There were many other moments in the movie though when you could tell that he was changing, such as when he was convincing that Nazi soldier friend of his' slave/mistress that he actually does care about her and then kisses her on the forehead and tells her that everything will be okay. He eventually then buys her from him to save her. Another scene was the girl in the red coat.

Once the "liquidation" of the ghetto occurred in 1941, and they took all of his workers, I think that was when you could see him change the most, because he then spent millions of dollars of his own money to get them back, in order to save them from being killed at Auschwitz. And then when they couldn't produce the munitions correctly, he bought them himself to be sent to the German army so they couldn't shut down the factory. He eventually went bankrupt because of this.

The war finally ended in May of 1945, and Schindler set his Jews free. He then had to flee as so the German army couldn't