FU BERLIN

John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies

WS 2002/2003

PS 32241: AMERICA AND THE HOLOCAUST

SCHINDLER’S LIST
AN APPROPRIATE WAY OF DEALING WITH THE HOLOCAUST?

by

TOBIAS GOLDSCHMIDT

3. SEMESTER

1. Introduction 3

2. Oscar Schindler and his deeds during WWII 3

3. From Paul Page’s idea to the film debut 4
3.1. Page’s try to convince Fritz Lang 5
3.2. The first contract between Page and MGM 5
3.3. Spielberg’s Schindler’s List 5

4. The film’s reputation 7
4.1. “Hollywoodian” Holocaust with Happy End 7
4.2. Is the holocaust filmable at all 8
4.3. The good German 8
4.4. Anti-Semitic clichés 8

5. Is Schindler’s List and appropriate way of representing the holocaust? 9
5.1. Holocaust as historical background, not subject of the film 9
5.2. The critics’ anti- Americanism 10
5.3. The good Nazi, and the survivors, Goeth and 6.000.0000 Jews 11
5.4. The good capitalist 11
5.5. Holocaust and Zionism 13

6. Conclusion 13

7. Literature 15

1. Introduction

In 1951 the idea of producing a film about Oskar Schindler´s deeds during the Second World War was mentioned by Paul Page. Page was known as Poldek Pfefferberg before he emigrated to the USA as one of 1200 holocaust survivors saved by Schindler.¹

In March 1994, just a few months after several racist attacks against asylum seeker hostels in Germany, Steven Spielberg presented his new film to an audience including Ignatz Bubis, head of the Jewish community in Germany, and the German President Richard von Weizäcker in Frankfurt/Main. As the film was so shocking, an old lady from the audience suddenly felt faint and had to be brought out of the hall. The extremely high security precautions at the film debut, as well as the violence against asylum seekers some weeks before, suggested that Anti- Semitism and violence against minorities still were problems in the reunified Federal Republic Of Germany. At the presentation ceremony Spielberg made it clear that this film was meant to be for thousands of US- American high school kids who had not even heard of the Nazis.²

As a Hollywood movie, Schindler’s List was able to open people’s minds to the unique cruelties that had happened during the Second World War. The film became a great commercial success and provoked a firestorm of controversies. The critics’ most important question was whether the film dealt with the holocaust in an appropriate way or not. In order to give the reader an idea about the film’s history, this paper will first explain how Schindler´s List came into being and what it is about. Afterwards it will present some criticisms on the film. The last chapters discuss common criticisms on Schindler’s List, and develop an own stand towards the question whether Spielberg’s movie was an appropriate way of dealing with the holocaust or not. As it is assumed that the reader roughly knows the film, this paper does not give a summary of the film.

2. Oscar Schindler and his deeds during WWII

Schindler’s List is based on reality. In December 1939 Oscar Schindler came to Crakow in order to take over a formerly Jewish company. The Jews were evacuated from the city by the Nazi- regime. Schindler was member of the NSDAP, worked for the German Secret Service, and even supplied the “Wehrmacht” with polish uniforms for their first attack on Gdansk at 1st of September 1939. In Krakow he took over a ceramics factory in order to avert attention from his work as a spy. As Schindler was a man who enjoyed life, women, alcohol, gambling and spending money, he wasn’t a hardliner in the Nazi- party and therefore didn’t have ideological problems to cooperate with the former owner of his new factory. Until December 1942 he employed about 370 Jewish forced workers in his factory and paid about 6 Reichsmark per worker per day to the SS. Schindler, who became more and more opposed, was in prison twice, first because he had kissed a Jewish girl, and then because he was accused of being involved in illegal black market activities, which in fact kept Schindler’s factory alive. Only his excellent contacts to high SS- officials spared his being heavily punished. In 1943 Schindler opened his own camp near the factory and started to produce ammunition in order to be supported by the Wehrmacht. When the frontline obviously moved westwards, Schindler transferred more than 1000 people and all his transportable machines from Krakow to the Czech town of Brünnlitz.

When Schindler’s camp was liberated by the sowjet army he and his family had already left. As he had lost all his belongings and all his money, the postwar years were very difficult for Schindler. He had to live in Bavaria because there was no future in Czechoslovakia for the Sudeten Germans. Supported by the “Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.“ he emigrated to Argentina in 1949 and failed to lead a nutria farm. Living in Germany again, Schindler visited Israel for the first time in 1962 and was honored by several institutions before he died in 1974 in Germany; he was buried in Jerusalem.³ In 1983 Thomas Keneally wrote a book about Schindler and in 1993 Spielberg produced Schindler’s List, which became a great success in the United States as well as in Europe.

[...]

1 Erika Rosenberg (Hrsg.): Ich, Oskar Schindler, München 2000, p. 409

2 Die Tageszeitung, Tränen zur Deutschlandpremiere, 3.3.1994

3 Johannes M. Noack: „Schindler´s Liste“, Authentizität und Fiktion in Spielbergs Film, Eine Analyse, Leipzig 1998, p.15-29