Write a short answer to any ONE of the Discussion Questions, ONE of the Character Development questions, and a reaction paper based on #7.

* Oskar Schindler (1908 -1974) was an ethnic German born in the village of Zwittau in Sudetenland, a portion of Czechoslovakia with many German inhabitants. He was known in the village by the name "Gauner," which meant swindler or sharper. A Jewish woman who lived in the town and whose life Schindler later saved, said, "As a Zwittau citizen I never would have considered him capable of all these wonderful deeds."
Oskar Schindler was a member of the Nazi party. He arrived in Cracow, Poland, just after the collapse of the Polish Army and at the beginning of the German occupation. His first effort, as shown in the film, was to capitalize on the misfortune of the Jews who had recently been forbidden from engaging in business. As an added inducement for them to "invest" in his new business, he offered to employ the investors or their relatives in his factory. For years, relations between Schindler and his Jewish workers were circumspect. But as the lot of the Jews in Poland worsened, the workers at Schindler's factory noticed that they were somehow protected. Word of this spread through the Jewish community.

Schindler spent his evenings entertaining the SS and German Army officers. His apparent political reliability and his engaging personality made him popular among the Nazi elite. During the day Schindler would entertain officials and visitors to the factory, pouring them vodka and Schnapps, telling them that he knew how to get work out of the Jews and that he wanted more brought into his factory. In this way he managed to bring into the plant and save from the gas chamber intellectuals, artists, and the families and relatives of his workers.
Schindler's acts of kindness and bravado saved lives on a daily basis. It was very dangerous to intercede for Jews in Nazi Germany, but Schindler did repeatedly. Often he would say "Stop killing my good workers. We've got a war to win." One woman, Rena Finder, who was forced into slave labor at the age of ten, recalled that she was about to be shot by an SS guard for breaking a machine used to make bullet casings. Schindler saved her life, telling the guard: "You idiot, this little girl could not break that machine."

In 1943 the Cracow ghetto was ordered closed and many of the Jews were sent to the death camps. Those people able to work were moved to the forced labor camp at Plaszow, just outside the city. The conditions in Plaszow were terrible. Many workers died and there were frequent transfers to nearby Auschwitz. In the Spring of 1943 Schindler moved into an active phase of his antifascist efforts, conspiring directly with his accountant/manager Itzhak Stern and other employees to save Jews from extermination and to outwit Nazi officials. He bribed Amon Goeth, the commander of Plaszow, to allow him to set up a sub-camp for his workers at the factory, "to save time getting to the job." It was then easier to smuggle food and medicine into the factory. When Plaszow was slated to be shut down and its prisoners transferred to the death camps. Schindler, during a night of drinking, convinced the chief of the war equipment command for all of Poland that Plaszow's workshops were well suited for serious war production. This idea survived the General's hangover. Plaszow was converted to a war-essential concentration camp and the inmates were no longer slated to be transferred to Auschwitz for extermination.

But still, Stern had doubts about Schindler. These ended in late 1943. In August Schindler hosted visitors sent to him by the underground organization that the Joint Distribution Committee (an American Jewish welfare organization) operated in occupied Europe. Schindler told Stern to speak frankly and the men asked for a full report on anti-Semitic persecutions in Plaszow. Stern thought this was a foolish risk and resisted, but finally Schindler ordered him to write the report. Stern wrote everything he could remember, mentioning the names of the living and the dead. When the underground brought him answering letters from America and Palestine, any doubts that Stern had about the integrity and judgment of Schindler were answered.

Schindler, aided by his wife, Emilie, provided extra food and brought in medicine, all purchased on the black market. They allowed religious celebrations in the factory. The SS guards were given regular bribes to keep them from reporting what was happening.

* 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.

Discussion Questions:
1. 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?
2. 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?
3. 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
4. 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?
5. Describe the personal relationship that developed between Itzhak Stern and Schindler?
6. 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?

7. 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?