Schindler's List Accuracy
The contrast and the history
Movies are meant to convey a story- characters, plot, meaning. Thus the complexity of life is often overly reduced.
Take one of the most famous war films, Schindler's List.
There are 2 main characters in this movie. Oskar Schindler and Amon Goth. Now, Amon Goth was a fat sadistic sociopathic who is cartoonishly evil in real life. A Hitler fanatic and sociopath with a license to kill- Goth took pleasure in watching children get eaten alive by dogs, whipped people to death, and had no remorse for his actions.
At 17 Goth joined the Nazi party when it was still a very new thing. A rabid antisemite, he soon joined the SS in Austria in 1930, where he was promoted to the rank of “Mann”- yes, I realize the irony.
He would spend years committing acts of terror and sabotage in Austria. After the Anshuls of Austria, he rejoined the German SS and continued to serve the Party. This included targeting and harassing German Jews, committing acts of violence, and other SS duties. When WW2 broke out, he was drafted into the Heer but did not serve. In 1941, he was appointed the position of “Einsatzführer,” meaning “Action Leader”. His many years in the SS and his absolute loyalty to even the most insane idea of Hitler.
This is where we meet him in Schindler’s list- as the Ghetto in Krakow is liquidated and the Jews there are sent to Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp. There, Goth ruled over his prisoners with unrestrained cruelty.
On the flip side with have Oskar Shindler. Now Schindler is presented as a complex character in the movie, but in reality, he is more complex.
He was a member of the Nazi Party: Not everyone had to physically join the party. It’s like how you may vote Republican or Democrat but not join the physical party. Oskar joined early and was a loyal Party member.
Schindler had joined the German Intelligence “Abwher” and helped Germany annex Czechoslovakia. I am writing another post on this now, but the annexation of Czechoslovakia and subsequent occupation cost some 300,000 civilian lives.
After Czechoslovakia, Oskar moved to Poland, where he continued to act as a spy for the German military. After Poland was invaded, he acquired a nice apartment (taken from a Jew) and a factory.
At its peak, Oskar’s factory had some 1,750 workers- more than 1,000 being Jewish. Despite being in Poland, he used Jews instead of Poles because Jews were slaves and he didn’t have to pay them.
Oskar did use his Abwher connections to protect his workers and then spent his entire fortune bribing members of the SS, Gestapo, and German Army to protect his workers. This is a great act. However, after the war, he lived off funds meant for Jewish relief and actually demanded repayment of the costs he incurred from these organizations.
Yes- Schindler demanded that Jewish relief organizations aiding Holocaust survivors repay him for the fortune he spent protecting his staff- a fortune he made from war profiteering and Jewish slave labor
After the war, Oskar would often ask for loans from those he saved to start businesses that would eventually always fail.
Oskar is not a saint. Really he is a shady, failed businessman who was fine scheming and working the system to make a buck. When confronted with the horror of the genocide before him, he did what many decent people would do.
Am I saying Oskar Schindler was a bad man? No- he acquired his lifelong dream of being rich and spent every penny protecting those who worked for him. He is to be admired. At the same time, he was a war profiteer who was perfectly fine with slave labor. He was just a man- a complex figure driven be greed, kindness, ego, and every other emotion.
So in the case of Goth, Schindler’s list makes him a more redeemable person than he actually was in real life. At the same time, the movie simplifies Schindler as a more morally good or mixed figure who ultimately does good.
The movie is trying to show the dual nature of man. Goth is Schindler’s bad version and Schindler is Goth’s good version. It contrasts these 2 men brilliantly.
There are also parts of the movie that I as a historian LOVE.
Don’t run into the wire: In a scene at the end when the women end up at Auschwitz by accident one of them tells their mother “don’t run into the wire”. This was a common way that victims ended their own lives. They’d run into the electric fence and end their suffering.
Special treatment: At one point in the end, Oskar tells Itzhak Stern (his main guy) that he will get “special treatment,” and Itzhak Stern points out that he see’s a lot of people getting this “special treatment” at Auschwitz. This is true- the Nazis referred to gassing as “special treatment”. Pointing out the Nazis coded language is great in my eyes.