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Based on a true story, Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List stars Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler, a German businessman in Poland who sees an opportunity to make money from the Nazis' rise to power. He starts a company to make cookware and utensils, using flattery and bribes to win military contracts, and brings in accountant and financier Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) to help run the factory. By staffing his plant with Jews who've been herded into Krakow's ghetto by Nazi troops, Schindler has a dependable unpaid labor force. For Stern, a job in a war-related plant could mean survival for himself and the other Jews working for Schindler. However, in 1942, all of Krakow's Jews are assigned to the Plaszow Forced Labor Camp, overseen by Commandant Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), an embittered alcoholic who occasionally shoots prisoners from his balcony. Schindler arranges to continue using Polish Jews in his plant, but, as he sees what is happening to his employees, he begins to develop a conscience. He realizes that his factory (now refitted to manufacture ammunition) is the only thing preventing his staff from being shipped to the death camps. Soon Schindler demands more workers and starts bribing Nazi leaders to keep Jews on his employee lists and out of the camps. By the time Germany falls to the allies, Schindler has lost his entire fortune -- and saved 1100 people from likely death. Schindler's List was nominated for twelve Academy Awards and won seven, including Best Picture and a long-coveted Best Director for Spielberg, and it quickly gained praise as one of the finest American movies about the Holocaust. Mark Deming

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In 1941, the Jews of Nazi-occupied Kracow are dispossessed of their businesses and herded into a tiny, squalid ghetto. Small-time entrepreneur Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), a gentile, conceives of a get-rich-quick scheme that involves Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), an accountant and member of the local judenrat (Jewish council), and an enamelware plant where cheap labor is supplied by ghetto Jews.

Stern sees a way to save Jewish lives: factory employees, classified as essential workers, are exempt from "resettlement" in concentration camps. Against his better judgment, Schindler looks the other way as Stern adds musicians, academics, rabbis, and cripples to the factory rolls. Within a year, the Final Solution is well underway, and a monstrous Nazi commandant, Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), brutally liquidates the ghetto and ships surviving Jews to a forced labor camp. Schindler bribes the cynical Goeth to permit re-establishment of the factory within camp walls, and business continues more or less as before. But Schindler is changing, and at great risk to himself, he begins to take an active role in protecting his workers.

Though based on fact, SCHINDLER'S LIST is neither history, nor the "definitive" film version of the Holocaust some reviewers wanted it to be. It's an intensely personal meditation on the nature of heroism and moral choice, rendered on the kind of rich, dreamlike cinematic canvas that only Hollywood can realize. Far from a departure for Spielberg, SCHINDLER'S LIST is the fulfillment of his singular talent for achieving high seriousness--as with EMPIRE OF THE SUN--within and despite the constraints of corporate filmmaking.

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Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s List is the historical account of Oskar Schindler and his heroic actions in the midst of the horrors of World War II Poland. Schindler’s List recounts the life of Oskar Schindler, and how he comes to Poland in search of material wealth but leaves having saved the lives of over 1100 Jews who would most certainly have perished. The novel focuses on how Schindler comes to the realization that concentration and forced labor camps are wrong, and that many people were dying through no fault of their own. This realization did not occur overnight, but gradually came to be as the business man in Oskar Schindler turned into the savior of the Jews that had brought him so much wealth. Schindler’s List is not just a biography of Oskar Schindler, but it is the story of how good can overcome evil and how charity can overcome greed.

Schindler’s List begins with the early life of Oskar Schindler. The novel describes his early family life in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his adolescence in the newly created state of Czechoslovakia. It tells of his relationship with his father, and how his father left his mother. His mother is also described in great detail. Like many Germans in the south, she was a devout Catholic. She is described as being very troubled that her son would take after her estranged husband with his negligence of Catholicism. Oskar never forgave Hans, his father, for his abandonment of his mother , which is ironic considering that Oskar would do the same with his wife Emilie. In fact Hans and Oskar Schindler’s lives would become so much in parallel that the novel describes their relationship as “that of brothers separated by the accident of paternity.” Oskar’s relationship with Emilie is also described in detail as is their marriage. The heart of the novel begins in October 1939 when Oskar Schindler comes to the Polish city of Cracow. It has been six weeks since the German’s took the city, and Schindler sees great opportunity as any entrepreneur would. For Schindler, Cracow represents a place of unlimited possibilities because of the current economic disorder and cheap labor. Upon his arrival in Cracow he meets Itzak Stern, a Jewish bookkeeper. Schindler is very impressed with Stern because of his business prowess and his connections in the business community. Soon Schindler and Stern are on their way to the creation of a factory that would run on Jewish labor. Around this time, the persecution of the Jews of Poland begins with their forced relocation into ghettoes. This turns out to be timely for Schindler as now he is able to get very cheap labor. The next few years would go well for Schindler and his factory for they turned a great profit. In fact he made so much money that he is quoted as saying, “I’ve made more money than I could possibly spend in a lifetime.” His workers were also very happy. This is because “Schindler’s Jews” were treated as humans as opposed to being treated as animals. For them, working in Schindler’s factory was an escape from the ghetto and from much German cruelty. They loved Schindler so much that his factory became known as a haven throughout the Jewish community.

 However, things began to go sour for Schindler, when the Germans ordered the liquidation of the ghettoes. Soon all of the Jews in the Cracow ghetto were relocated to the Plaszow labor camp. By this time Schindler had grown so affectionate toward his Jewish workers that he refused to hire Poles, and instead sought of a way to keep using the Jews that he had grown so accustomed to. As the Cracow Jews were relocated to the Plaszow labor camp, Oskar Schindler came into direct dealings with the camp’s director, Amon Goeth. He did not like Amon, but he tried to get in on his best side in order to keep using his Jews in his factory. Amon agreed to let Schindler use them, and thus saving his Jews from some of the harshness of the Plaszow labor camp. As the war began to go badly for the Germans, they decided to accelerate their “final solution” by sending the Jews to more sinister concentration camps such as Auchwitz. This is when Oskar Schindler finally comes to the realization that he had the power to help his people. The now enlightened Schindler decides to use his entire fortune to buy the lives of the Schindlerjuden in order to save them from the gas chambers of Auchwitz. This is how Schindler’s list came to be. 1100 Jewish names that had in some way touched his life were put on a list and bought. His plan was to send the 1100 Jews to his newly created ammunitions factory in his native Czechoslovakia. However, Schindler’s plan does not go smoothly for an entire train load of his women were accidentally shipped to Auchwitz instead of to his factory. Schindler then uses more of his diminishing financial recourses to try to get his Jews out of Auchwitz. He succeeds in doing this, and thus the Schindlerjuden have escaped the worse. Meanwhile in Czechoslovakia his plan continues in that he tricks the Germans into thinking that they were going to produce quality ammunition, but instead not one good shell was ever produced to help the German army. Gratefully, within a few months Hitler was dead and the Germans were defeated. Unfortunately, Oskar Schindler was now penniless for he had given everything in order to save as many Jews as possible.

Thomas Keneally wrote Schindler’s List to be more than just the story of a man and his heroic deeds, but also to show today’s world of the dangers of hatred. He emphasizes this latter point through his descriptions of how cruelly the Nazis treated the Jews. Keneally also tries to point out how one man can make a difference as is the case with Oskar Schindler. However, perhaps Keneally’s greatest objective with Schindler’s List is that the world should never forget Oskar Schindler and what he did for the Jews as well as for mankind. Schindler’s impact is so great that even the numerical facts are astonishing. In fact if one compares the number of direct descendants of the Schindlerjuden to the number of Jews alive in Poland after 1945, it is evident that there are more Schindlerjuden today than the total number of Jews in 1945 Poland. This statistical fact shows how greatly Schindler, who died in 1974, will be missed. Perhaps Keneally shares the Schindlerjuden’s remorse for their savior by the way he ends his novel. Keneally ends the novel with the somber line, “He was mourned on every continent.”
Schindler’s List had a great effect on me personally. I thought that Thomas Keneally did an excellent job in making the reader feel the events of the time. Perhaps what I found to be most interesting in Schindler’s List is a question of morality. I began asking myself the question, would I be as heroic as Oskar Schindler if I were in his shoes? I think that this is exactly what Keneally wanted us to do; he wanted us to look at ourselves and analyze what’s inside. Historically, I find Schindler’s List to be very important not only because it is tells of a shameful time in western civilization, but also because the events that took place in the novel occurred only yesterday. After all fifty years is almost nothing in historical terms. Perhaps the novel’s greatest strength is this feeling that the events that transpired in Schindler’s List are in fact modern history.
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Schindler's List 
Thomas Keneally

Retail Price: $14.00 Our Price: $12.60 You Save: $1.40 (10%) Readers' Advantage Price: $11.97 Join Now  In Stock:Ships within 24 hours  Same Day Delivery in Manhattan. Format: Paperback, 400pp. ISBN: 0671880314 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Trade Paperbacks Pub. Date: December  1993 Edition Desc : MVI TIE IN

In a new hardcover edition, here is the story of how Oskar Schindler, a German-Catholic industrialist, came to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during WWII. It is the story that Steven Spielberg turned into a seven Academy Award-winning film, and a milestone of Holocaust literature that touches the hearts and provokes the mind of all who read it. Photos throughout.

USING THE MOVIE

• Itzhak Stern was the head accountant for a large Jewish owned export-import firm located in Cracow, a large Polish city near the Czech border. After the occupation of Poland, the Germans "Aryanized" businesses by seizing ownership, installing a German Trustee, making the former owner into an employee hired to manage the business, and replacing many Jewish workers with "Aryan" workers. The German Trustee of the business in which Stern worked, however, acted strangely. He left the discharged workers on the social insurance registry which enabled them to maintain their workers' identity cards. This protected them, for a while, from deportation. He also, secretly, gave the former workers money to buy food. After the end of the war Stern learned that the "German" Trustee was actually a Jew who was masquerading as an "Aryan." It was this man who first introduced Stern to Schindler saying "You know, Stern, you can have confidence in my friend Schindler." However, it took years for Stern to fully trust Schindler. It was difficult to sort through Schindler's greed, high living, close association with Nazi officials, and membership in the Nazi party, to see the real man. These were the very traits that permitted Schindler to survive detection by the Nazis.
  
  

1. [Standard Questions Suitable for Any Film].
2. There have been many atrocities committed throughout history. The Holocaust was not the first or the last. Why is the Holocaust recalled with such horror?
3. Has the Holocaust changed the actions of political leaders in the time since it occurred? How does this relate to the actions of NATO and the United Nations in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo?
4. Why didn't the Allied Powers, who knew that mass killings were taking place, focus their firepower on the ovens and the killing operations? The answer has something to do with one of the major reasons that President Truman decided to drop atom bombs on Japan, an action which lead to the deaths of many civilians. See Learning Guide to Fat Man and Little Boy.
5. In this film almost none of the Jewish characters that we get to know well are killed. Why is that? Given the power of this film, what would have been the effect on the audience, particularly those whose relatives were murdered in the Holocaust, had this occurred? How does your answer to this question relate to the decision to use black and white rather than color film?
6. Why is this film shot mostly in black and white? What were the advantages to filming these events in black and white? Color is used four times in the film. Why are certain scenes shot in color?
   
   
   Character Development
7. Quick Discussion Question: At the beginning of the war Schindler was a greedy high living war profiteer anxious to profit from the misfortune of the Jews. By the end of the war, what was his attitude toward money? What made him change?
8. There was a theme that ran through most of Schindler's actions: his delight in women; his interest in good times and high living; his friendliness with everyone (including the Nazis); and his protection of the Jews who came to work in his factory. Can you describe what this was?
9. Can you describe the personal relationship that developed between Itzhak Stern and Schindler?
10. What was Schindler doing when he talked to Amon Goeth about power and told him that refraining from imposing punishment showed greater power than imposing it? Did Schindler's tactic work? Why not? What was the film trying to tell us through this series of incidents?
11. How does the concept of "alien" or "other" work in the psychology of the perpetrators of the Holocaust and other atrocities and mass killings? Tell us how this concept works in the following published report from the attempted genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda. A Hutu village headman had married a Tutsi woman and they had three sons. When the killings of Tutsis began, an official from the central government came to the village headman and told him that unless he participated in the genocide he would be killed. The headman then sent his sons out of the house and killed their mother. Then, in front of the Hutus of the village, he personally murdered each of his sons.
12. How does the idea that the victim is somehow regarded as "evil" affect all atrocities and mass killings?
13. Define the concept of the "good German." Identify the "good Germans" in the film. Explain the psychology of compartmentalization.
14. Schindler's wife, Emilie, who was very much his partner in his heroic efforts, said, "We only did what we had to do." How do you reconcile this statement with the actions of most of the German people who lived during the Second World War and who permitted the Holocaust to occur without protest. See Learning Guide to Judgment at Nuremberg.
15. Schindler was a gambler and an opportunist who liked living on the edge and outsmarting the SS. Does the fact that he may have had an emotional predilection for connivance and for cheating the authorities take away any of the glory of his accomplishments? A similar comment can be made about Emilie Schindler, that she was to a certain extent simply following the lead of her husband and being a good wife. Does this take away any of the glory of her accomplishments?
16. Is there a mystery to profound human goodness or evil, or can everything be explained by human psychology?
    
    
    Ethical Emphasis
    (Teachwithmovies.org is associated with Character Counts and uses The Six Pillars of Character to organize ethical principals.)
    
    The Discussion Questions Relating to Ethical Issues are designed to maximize the use of this film to teach ethical principles and critical viewing. Concepts from The Six Pillars of Character that are raised in this film are: Trustworthiness (Have the courage to do the right thing); Respect (Treat others with respect; follow the Golden Rule); and Caring (Be kind; Be compassionate and show you care; Help people in need)
    
    
17. Elie Wiesel, a student of the Holocaust, has said that "indifference" is the greatest sin and punishment of the Holocaust. Can you explain what he meant by this? How does this concept relate to the scene in which Schindler arranges to have the condemned Jews in the overheated box cars hosed down with water? Why does this act amuse the Commandant and other SS officials as they sit in the shade and sip their iced drinks?

1. Pick three major religions and discover how the existence of events such as the Holocaust are explained in their theology. This can be done through reading and research or through interviews with religious leaders.