The Schindler's List

Schindler’s list

Schindler’s List is an American epic historical drama film directed and co-produced by famous and world known Steven Spielberg.  This very very sad film has been inspired by the book,  Schindler’s Ark released in 1982 by the Australian novelist Thomas Keneally and published in the US as Schindler’s List.
The original title of the book Schindler’s Ark refers to the legendary story from the bible when God was so fed up he decided to wipe mankind from the face of the earth ; one righteous man among all the people of that time, Noah built an ark for him and his family  and two of every living creature (male and female, according God’s instructions) etc…    in preparation for the catastrophic flood that would destroy every living thing on earth...
At the outbreak of the Second World about 3,5 millions Jews were living  in Poland . When Germany attacked Poland on september 1. 1939 and the Soviet Union on september 17, they occupied one part of Poland where 60 % of the Jews were living.  Poland was where the German Nazi program for the extermination of Jews, the « Final Solution » was implemented since this was where the majority of Europe’s Jews lived at that time ( excluding the Soviet Union) .
Following the german army the Wehrmacht, were a lot of people willing to make the most of the war (war profiteers) , among them was a german industrialist  Oskar Schindler who arrived in the city of Krakow to make his fortune . He was hiring jews workers because it was very cheap for him and he could make high profits in his enamal ware (pot making) . But he wittnessed the massacre ordered by the SS  after they decided that the Krakow’s ghetto where all the polish have been gathered  would be liquidated. And he saw the construction of the concentration camp of Plaszow, south of the town of Krakow . Schindler was a member of the Nazi Party and he befriended with Goeth the SS responsible for the camp, both were gamblers, heawy drunkers and womanizers. …
So Schindler was not a saint but eventually he has been moved by the cruality and the sufferings of the people sent on trains as cattle to the extermination camps and he decided to save as many people as he could. He lavished  bribes on Wehrmacht and SS officials  and  with the help of Itzhak Stern  a local Jew official and accountant who ran his factory, he hired as many people « deemed essential to the German war effort » which saved them from being transportated to concentration camps or killed. At the end of the war, as the Germans began to lose the war, Goeth was ordered to ship the remaining Jews at Plaszow to Auschwitz concentration camp. Schindler asked Goeth to move his workers to a new ammunitions factory he planned to build in his home town Zwittau Brinnlitz. Goeth agreed on the condition of a huge bribe.
Schindler and Stern created « Schindler’s list » a list of people to be transferred to Brinnlitz and therefore saved from transport to Auschwitz.
Up to 1200 people have been saved that way .
In 1958 Schindler was declared a righteous person by the council of the Yad Vashen in Jerusalem. He had his tree still growing in the Avenue of the Righteous.
The film by Spielberg was a huge success but as « it was blood money » Spielberg decided the money needed to be put back to the Jewish community , into the Righteous Persons Foundation.