Schindler’s List: A movie about humanity amidst war

In the same year of 1993, Jurassic Park, a movie directed by Steven Spielberg hit the screen, another movie Schindler’s List too came on screen by the same director. Unlike the former, it was no entertainer set in imagination but was based on the facts. You need a little bit of knowledge about second world war, atrocities of Hitler, situation in war hit Poland and 35 lakh Polish Jews killed during that time by SS Army to understand this movie better. This movie is not for weak hearted and sensitive people as it will shake their humanity to the core. Most of the movie is shot in Black and White. Scenes appear like in a documentary but has much drama in it. And some of them are not easy to digest.

This movie is about Oscar Schindler and the list of Jews he saved from the clutches of Hitler’s SS Army. Hitler never appears on screen, but his army men carry out his instructions throughout the movie, a bit brutally by sending droves of Jews to gas chambers to die. The protagonist manages to save a thousand of them from death.

Schindler is an industrialist and a politician. He is part of Hitler’s Nazi party. He has a wide network including SS Army officials and is an influential person. When SS Army captures Poland and begins to send thousands of civilian Jews to war concentration camps, Schindler manages to get a little more than thousand Jews prisoners giving a reason that they are skilled workers needed to run his factory. His factory does not need so many of them and it is a disguise to save their lives. Aman Goth, SS army official with a horrible psychic personality, knows about this. Though he randomly kills few and it is the influence of Schindler saves the lives of Jews.

There are many scenes which shows the cruelty adopted by SS Army and its commander Aman Goth. Lakhs of Jews lose their lives in Poland after their country loses battle to Hitler’s army. At the end, Russia’s Red Army wins the war against Hitler and they arrive at Krakow, a town where the movie is set. Schindler prepares to flee as he also belongs to Nazi party. And the people he saved, take out gold from a gold filled tooth and turn it to a ring and give it as a parting gift to Schindler. On the ring, it is written in Hebrew that “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire”. Seeing that Schindler breaks down into tears and says he could have done better and saved few more Jews. And he escapes from the town in the midnight.

Next day morning, a soldier from Soviet arrives and says to the gathered Jews ‘You are liberated’. They all leave to a nearby town. Aman Goth gets hanged by Russian soldiers. In the last scene, the generations of people saved by Schindler arrives at his gravestone and offer their respect.

This movie is on the list of best movies created so far. If you are a history buff or a person moved by badass people who did not lose humanity despite the odds against them, you should not miss to watch it before you die. This movie is available on Netflix.