Comparing Schindler's List And The Holocaust

During World War II, German forces pushed all Polish Jews from Krakow into the local ghetto that was already full with Polish Jews. Schindler’s List shows how a member of the Nazi Party, Oskar Schindler, saves Jews from the Krakow Ghetto and many others by opening an enamelware factory and bribing German officials. Schindler hires a Jewish official named Itzhak Stern to help him run the factory and manage finances. Eventually, the factory is up and running, but the Krakow Ghetto was ordered to be emptied, a process in which many Jews were killed. Schindler watches this massacre from a distant mountain and realizes that he wants to save Jews with his factory instead of focusing on making a profit. The man in charge of the concentration camp

where the Krakow Jews were sent is bribed by Schindler to allow Schindler’s factory workers to live in a sub-camp where they would be better protected. As time goes on, the Jews in the concentration camp are ordered to be sent to Auschwitz, but Schindler makes a list of his workers that would be sent to a new factory instead of Auschwitz. This list, Schindler’s list, saves many Jews from being brutally murdered by the Germans. Schindler’s new factory is then only kept in business by the buying of finished shells and reselling them to the Germans. As Schindler runs out of money and the war ends, the Jews and guards are sent free while Schindler flees to avoid capture because he was a member of the Nazi Party. Oskar Schindler only wishes that he could have saved more Jews when presented with appreciative gifts from his workers.
In reality, Oskar Schindler had always been an antifascist who worked to save Jews with his factory. He arrived in Krakow and recruited one hundred workers, seven of which were Jewish, to begin the manufacturing of enamelware in the winter of 1939-1940 (Steinhouse, 1994). Eventually, Schindler’s factory grew larger and more Jewish people from the Krakow Ghetto were employed (Steinhouse, 1994). In order to save Jewish families from getting deported, Oskar Schindler told the Nazis that he knew how to work them and that he needed more workers (Steinhouse, 1994). Work continued until the spring of 1943, after all of the Jews from the ghetto were shipped to the Plaszow labor camp and Nazi soldiers were disrupting production on the factory floor (Steinhouse, 1994). After this, Schindler decided to focus on bribing German officials to keep his factory open instead of producing enamelware (Steinhouse, 1994). Once other camps were beginning to close, Schindler managed to convince officials that the Plaszow camp was essential to the war effort and that his workers should be kept in their own sub camp, where Schindler fed and treated his workers well (Schrag, 1994, Steinhouse, 1994). As the Germans began to lose the war, the camp was ordered to be closed, but Schindler managed to save his workers by sending them to a new camp in Czechoslovakia, while the rest were sent to Auschwitz (Schrag, 1994, Steinhouse, 1994). The women that worked for Schindler were accidentally sent to Auschwitz where they stayed for a few months before being sent to their correct destination (Steinhouse, 1994). The Jews worked for Schindler until the end of the war, when they were freed by the Russians.
Overall, Schindler’s List was a highly accurate film that was able to educate its viewers about how Oskar Schindler saved over one thousand Jews during the Holocaust. The names of the characters in the film, such as Oskar Schindler and Itzhak Stern, were the same as the people they modeled in real life. The plot of the movie matched up very closely to the history of how Oskar Schindler saved many Jews with his factory.
Most differences in the film and history came from differences in minor details.

One small difference that lowered the film’s accurateness was how long the women who were accidentally shipped to Auschwitz stayed there. In Schindler’s List, the women seemed to be transferred to their rightful destination within the same day or at most, a few days because Oskar Schindler raced to Auschwitz in order to save them. In reality, the women spent a few months at Auschwitz before being transported to Schindler’s factory. Mr. Schindler and the official at Auschwitz had a long, heated debate about sending the same women or “fresh” women to Schindler’s factory. In the end, Schindler won and was reunited with his original

workers.
Another difference came with why Oskar Schindler wanted to open a factory, employing the Jews. In the movie, Schindler planned on opening an enamelware factory in order to make money by employing Jews that would work for very little. After seeing the massacre that was the liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto, Schindler’s priority turned from making money to saving as many Jews as possible. As an antifascist, Oskar Schindler had always made saving Jews from being brutally murdered a top priority. Schindler began his enamelware factory with very few Jews, but was able to expand his factory and increase the number of Jews that would work for him.
In addition to the above differences, another difference includes how Schindler’s List portrays the Schindler Jews as a group of Jews who actively worked to be saved. During one scene, it is shown that a woman visits Oskar Schindler and begs him to let her elderly parents work for him in order to be saved from death. In several interviews with survivors of the Holocaust, it was said that the Schindler Jews were saved because of pure luck that they were chosen to work for Schindler (Brown, 2002).
After watching Schindler’s List, I feel like I have a much better understanding of what it may have been like for the Jews during the Holocaust.

I was in a state of shock for most of the film because of the horrible ways the Jews were treated and murdered. I know that I can never truly understand what it was like for them, but it is clear that they were treated as though they had less value than animals. The film was presented in such a way that was very brutal, but straight forward which helped get an emotional reaction out of its viewers. I thought that because the film was straight forward, it appeared to be more accurate, understandable, and

relatable.
Based on this film’s ability to educate its viewers on Oskar Schindler and the Holocaust, I award this film five stars. Schindler’s List is a highly accurate film based on a real man that saved over a thousand Jews from being killed. As someone who does not know much about history, I was easily able to follow along and understand the information that was being presented. At the same time, the information was not basic enough to bore people who have knowledge in the field of this time period.
I would highly recommend Schindler’s List to a friend because of its historical accurateness and ability to engage viewers. Because of the content in this film, I would recommend Schindler’s List to a mature audience who can also appreciate and understand what is happening throughout the movie. I feel like I learned a lot about who Oskar Schindler was and how he exactly saved so many innocent people from being murdered. I also took some feelings from the film as to what life could have been like as a Jew during the Holocaust. I have seen worse scenes from movies about the Holocaust in which the Jews were treated much worse than in Schindler’s List. This film provided me with a clear understanding of how the Schindler Jews were saved without being too gory and repulsive.