Film Lesson:Schindler's List

Oskar Schindler
- Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist who owned a factory in Poland. Schindler was unemployed during the time he joined the Nazis, looking for an opportunity took make money and naturally took advantage of Germany's invasion of Poland. Instead of employing Polish laborers, Schindler used Jewish slave workers. They were much cheaper to employ and Schindler became wealthy.

- In 1942, Schindler witnessed the wrath of Nazis against the Jews. He watched the liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto whose inhabitants were being sent to concentration camps. Schindler persuaded the Nazis to let him keep the Jewish workers as a way to protect them from the gas chambers. He recruited more Jewish workers, and did everything possible to keep them alive. He saw the Jewish people as human beings instead of animals who were being slaughtered.Towards the end of the war Schindler freed his workers and became a hero. He was buried in Jerusalem and received " The Righteous Among Nations". This award was given to the people who put their own lives in danger in order to save the Jews.

The Movie
- The scenes that were very powerful to me were the children who were hiding from the Nazis in the concentration camps. The children were being put into trucks, some had escaped and were being chased by the soldiers. One boy desperately began to look for a place to hide and he ended up hiding in one of the bathrooms. Another scene was when the Jewish people were shoveling all the snow and the Nazis took out an old man from the line. He was killed in front of everybody, and because of his age he couldn't work as fast as the others.

-The images that will stay with me forever are the piles of dead bodies the Nazis were burning to hide the evidence. Hundreds of Jews were carrying the dead ones in wheelbarrows while the Nazis watched with towels on their faces. One Nazi soldier becomes deranged and begins to shoot the dead bodies. Schindler is horrified but does not stop the Nazi from shooting. One scene that I thought showed that Schindler cared for his workers was when he let them free and dared the Nazi guards to take them away. One by one the guards left, and Schindler asked the Jews for a moment of silence for those who had perished.

-Oskar Schindler may had been a greedy Nazi but his heart saved 1,200 Jews from dying. He was a hero in many ways and earned the respect of thousands of Jews generations after the Holocaust.

Film Lesson: Night and Fog

-The movie " Night and Fog" was a very powerful film because it was very hard to watch in some scenes. I saw the fear in their eyes while the Nazis forced them in the trains to that would lead to their death.They were dehumanized because the Nazis took away their clothes, jewelry, shaved their heads, took away their names and families. The Nazis forced them to live in poor conditions, hoping that they would die. The scene that was devastating to see was when they showed the sick prisoners and how thin they were.I felt their pain because they were dying slowly and in the most horrible way. The SS doctors experimented on them which I thought was the most immoral thing they did to the Jews because it left their skin destroyed and they had open wounds.

- I've read about the Holocaust, seen pictures of the concentration camps but this documentary showed the suffering of the Jews. When they were led by the Nazis to the gas chambers it showed how desperate the Jews were to live. They tried to claw their way and left marks on the walls and ceilings. All the dead bodies were the same, each face had fear and their eyes had no hope in them.Some of the prisoners committed suicide by throwing themselves against the electric gates.The Nazis kept diligent records on their prisoners, and then they tried to deny what they did in the Nuremberg trials. They even showed the Allies reaction when they found the concentration camps and what they had to do.

- These images were more brutal to watch than Schindler's List because they more accurate emotionally. The documentary showed more of the devastation of the concentration camps and how they lived in misery. Each day the Jewish people had to watch as their own died while the Nazis rejoiced. These two films had different point of views, the compassion of one Nazi soldier and the genocide of one entire race.