Schindler's List

           Made by Steven Spielberg, a film based on the Holocaust in Poland. Oskar Schindler, a recently arrive German decides to make use of the Jews in order to start a factory but eventually saving the Jews instead towards the end of the film.

            The film explores the idea of humanity. Especially the humanities of Germans and Jews. Why Jews? Mainly because the Germans never saw the Jews as human to begin with. We need to remember that it was through propaganda that the Jews were made as the scapegoat. Were the Germans innately cruel and evil? Perhaps we’ll never know but also, we’ll need to remember that the Germans are also humans. Hitler may have genuinely consider that Jews were generally evil as well. Hence the persecution. It is easy to put one party into different camps. Especially if you do not know the person. Had Schindler not interacted closely with the Jews, he might not have chosen to save the Jews while losing his entire wealth in the process. The catalyst may have been when he save his Jew factory supervisor from the train that was going to ship them away.

            It’s interesting to see that the Jews portrayed in the film, despite all forms of persecution and injustice; they still tried their best to reason and talk to the Germans. We may reason it as fear mongering by the Germans but we can also see it as a form of the Jews trying to humanize the Germans. If the Jews had rebelled, it is quite probable that they could have overpowered the Germans stationed Poland. The war was still ongoing. The Germans could not have afford to spare a large amount of soldiers to keep them in check. Hence the fear mongering and swift execution of the Jews. Perhaps the one German that they manage to reach out to was Schindler.

            A recently film that addresses persecution and discrimination was Zootopia. Which featured animals of two camps. Predator and prey. Once it was establish that predators could possible revert to their predatorial primitive forms, discrimination of the predators was swift. They were just short of putting the predators into concentration camps and culling them until the situation was resolved.

              

            Despite all this, the ravages and horrors of war and the effects on people. Best lesson is that we’re all still human.