Oskar Schindler's List Research Paper

When most people think of “change,” they think about money. Money is what led one man to change as a person. It was people who were most impacted by his change. Oskar Schindler’s metamorphosis from a businessman to a charitable life-saver in Steven Spielberg’s film, Schindler’s List, was remarkable.
Great businessman all can earn money, often on risky investments. They also can appeal to potential investors, and can turn little to no money into huge profits. In Steven Spielberg’s film, Schindler’s List, Oskar Schindler is the definition of a successful businessman. Great businessmen always have a long-term business plan/vision in which Oskar had. Early in the film, he planned to visit a restaurant using the little money he had, he spent almost

all of it at a restaurant attempting to win over the favor of the Nazi military officials, who he hoped would be his future customers. Also, Schindler had the ability to appeal to investors in what normally would be a bad deal, and use the holocaust to take advantage of Jewish money to make a huge profit. Oskar Schindler’s working factory, from no money, is clear evidence of his business success. Oskar’s only concerns were material goods and alcohol as we see in the first scene he was pouring himself a drink and deciding upon a suit jacket and cufflinks and he attached a Nazi Party pin to his lapel and grabbed several large wads of bills. Schindler’s actions in the nightclub indicate his desire to network with powerful Nazi officials as well as his charm and charisma which are also examples of a great businessman.
As Oskar Schindler witnesses the inhumanity of the Nazis, his business pursuits shifted in favor of the well-being of the Jewish people. In one instance, a one-armed man came to Schindler to exclaim, “God bless you. You saved my life!” This made Schindler aware that he was doing much more making money, he was preventing death. He took great risk in helping a woman to save her “older parents,” by bribing an official with an expensive watch to get them into the factory now considered a “haven” by many Jews. Before Schindler knew it, his hear grew bigger than his wallet. Schindler’s realizations of the horrors of the holocaust begin in one scene near the middle of the film. During this infamous turning point of the movie, Schindler, on top of a barren hill, his terrified eyes focus on one young girl in a scarlet coat, in front of whom the Nazis are shooting and bludgeoning people to death. After witnessing the cattle cars and the death of seven thousand people, Schindler fully realizes the Nazi’s plan to exterminate all Jews. Schindler travels to Hungary to warn Jewish leaders there about the horrific reality of the camps. Schindler finally secured money from the Jewish investors, who agreed to accept goods as payment, because, as Schindler points out, money will be worthless in the ghetto. Schindler sets up his factory with Stern’s help and hires Jews, rather than Poles, because they are cheaper to employ. Workers at the factory were deemed “essential”—a status that saves them from removal to death camps. Stern recognizes this fact immediately and fills the factory with many Jewish workers whom the Nazis would otherwise have deemed expendable.
Schindler begins to participate actively in saving Jews when a Jewish girl passing as a gentile, visits his office.

She begs Schindler to hire her parents because she has heard that his factory is a haven. He refuses to help and sends her away. Later, he yells at Stern and tells him he is not in the business of saving people. But when Schindler finishes his tirade, he gives Stern his gold watch and tells him to bring the parents over. Later Schindler gives Stern more and more of his own personal items to use for bribes to bring people to his factory. Schindler realizes that his workers, Stern included, face certain death at the hands of the Nazis, so he decides to spend his fortune to save as many Jews as he can. With that, Schindler begins to make his list. He bribed Amon Goeth to get 7,800 Jews on his list to be saved. The men and women that were on the list got put on separate trains and all the women were inadvertently diverted to Auschwitz, where Schindler is forced to buy them again. When the war ended, Schindler tells his workers that they are now free but that he would be hunted as a war criminal and must flee at midnight. When he bids his Jews good-bye, they give him a ring made from the gold tooth work of a factory worker, engraved with the Talmudic phrase, “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.” Schindler breaks down, crying that he could have sacrificed more, saved more

lives.
Before his Character Development, Schindler's only interest in the Jews was for their potential to make him a profit.

The pointless sadism of the other Nazis never occurred to him. But as the death toll and dangers grew, he became increasingly concerned with preserving the lives of his workers, going as far as to spend his entire fortune and risk his own life. He could keep nearly all his prisoners alive in his factory while also resisting the Nazi war effort by producing faulty shells. Schindler himself believes—ironically—in the opposite: that war brings out the worst in

people.