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I know I tease sometimes about pudgey laughing) crying. This is so such a deep movie, I'm so glad to watch with you guys. You guys are so genuine and fun. Thanks!!
1:04:19 The significance of those rocks is that they were thrown by Palestinian children, by showing them at the end the story comes to a full circle with Israelis becoming the new Nazis.
Honestly, the ability to embody the character of a truly horrendous individual and make it convincing, in my opinion, is a much greater level of talent than portraying a morally good character. Most of the best acting performances I've seen have either been villains or characters with some sort of immorally aligned inner compass, and I believe it's because the best actors don't shy away from embracing that dark, corrupt and twisted side of humanity for the role.
There’s a pretty famous interaction where Ralph Fiennes met an actual survivor while in uniform, and the survivor literally trembled because Fiennes resembled the real Goeth so much
And to make matters worse, the real Amon Goeth is said to have been far worse than what Spielberg portrays. Apparently he was worried about allegations of exaggerating the horrors of the Holocaust, so Goeth had to be watered down from the real thing.
@@daniel_sannguyen IIRC she was the real Helen Hirsch (?), but I don't think that was her real name. The maid "employed" by Amon Goeth. I could be wrong.
@@joshuawells835 That is exactly right. The real Amon Goeth was put into prison himself before the end of the war because he went too far even for the Nazis.
Yes! I didn't put that together when I watched the movie for the first (and only) time. I've watched many reactions though and I learned this from a reactor saying it. I didn't catch it, I think, because I was crying and it all was so emotional. Amazing movie depicting just a horrific period in our shared history. ❤🩹
@@nooneofconsequence1251 I saw this movie when it came out in theaters. I might be wrong but I remember at the time from interview from the cast or Steven Spielberg himself, that Stern is actually the lady in real life, Steven decided to change her character to a man & hired Ben Kingsley to play her.
@@jcgpisces579 uh... no... don't know where you hear that or what you might be thinking of but Itzhak Stern was a man. He died in 1969 at the age of 68. He was survived by his widow, Sophia Backenrot, who appeared at the end of the film alongside actor Ben Kingsley. I think in the film they even identify her as Stern's widow...
Breaks me every damn time. Shit, a couple years ago I took the family to John Williams' "Maestro of the Movies" show at the Hollywood Bowl and within two measures of the theme for Schindler's List I broke.
"Funnily" enough, it's quoted in the cartoon series X-Men 97. Magneto's backstory is that he is a holocaust survivor. There's an episode where genocide happens and in the midst of rescuing people he yells out, "We will not live our days wondering if we could have saved more". That show is a masterpiece, for little things like that, but it just goes to show how impactful this part was in this movie.
The reason why the other Germans were so cooperative and trusting, and some were frankly terrified of Schindler, isn't often mentioned in comments about the movie. Schindler isn't wearing an ordinary Party membership badge. He's wearing the Golden Party Badge, a special award reserved for those most honored by the Party as heroes and often held by senior SS, Party, and government officials. When threatening those two with being in Southern Russia, they took him very seriously. Schindler was involved in Party activities in the Sudetenland, fighting to join those parts of Czechoslovakia with Germany as part of German military intelligence before WWII. He was wanted by the Czech authorities after the war precisely because of those pre-war crimes, but avoided being extradited from the West due to the intervention of the Schindler Jews with the occupation authorities.
@@cassu6 Schindler was a lot more complicated and gray fellow than the hero Spielberg made him out to be in the film. His actions before the war were done in the context of a German nationalist. From his subsequent actions though, he obviously didn't buy into the totality of the Party's program and quite clearly took steps to oppose it.
@cassu6 He was an Abwher agent who was actively involved in run up to the invasion of Poland as well. He was not a good dude, but he at least found his conscious by the end of the war.
Schindler provided the Polish uniforms for the German army that were used in the false flag operation that was used to justify the invasion. Knowing this detail provides a very different perspective on why he broke down at the end. He realized and accepted that he was at least partly responsible for the death of all of the other relatives of those that he saved.
I am pretty sure Schindler was selfish and rotten inside but accidentaly did something good. This is why I hate the scene in the end of the film where his workers thanks him - I consider it disgusting. This movie is BASED on real event but it is mainly Spilberg's fanfiction. Btw. events in the camps were much worse than washed up scenes in the movie.
I saw Stephen Fry talk about an interview he once did. It was with a jewish women that survived the Holocaust. She was a good violin player and the SS officer she got to loved classical music, and she used to play just that. She told Fry about how he called her out of a room and told her to play a Mozart piece (I think it was, at least a very hard to play piece of music). When she was done, he said "that was all". Stephen then asked her, You didn't get a thank you? You just played one of the most amazing piece of music that very few people can play and he doesn't even thank you. Her response was, ohh you sweet innocent man, you don't understand, we where not human for them. Do you say thank you to the radio when it have played music for you? That line is what really made it click in me from hearing about them not thinking of them as humans to understanding what those words actually entails.
That's how this works. You demonize and dehumanize a group of people and tell everyone it's their fault things are bad. When people believe that they will do the most despicable things to those minorities and not even feel bad about it because they're not human. That's why Trump speaking of vermin poisoning the blood of america is so devious and awful.
What makes the Schindler story so compelling and so important is that he wasn't a saint. He was a deeply flawed human being who, at a time when many other flawed human beings gave in to their baser nature, decided to do what he could for what was right. Anyone who looks at that period of history and thinks they would act flawlessly according to the standards of today is deluding themselves, but we can all look at ourselves and think that perhaps we would have done what we could in spite of ourselves: and whilst that is no comfort to the masses that didn't make it, it meant everything to those lucky few. That line "there will be generations because of what you did" hits so damned hard. This isn't a movie that anyone really wants to watch, but it's a movie everyone needs to watch because history has an unfortunate habit of repeating itself. Spielberg's genius was in making it absolutely riveting whilst being just comfortable enough to bear...
Interesting. Very few people who have a chance to be heroic are saints -- that's just how humanity works. But contemporary people don't get the benefit of their good deeds if someone finds ugly flaws. If Schindler did the equivalent today, about 5% of folks would praised him for his incredbile actions, then he'd be dogpiled by the 95% for his flaws. Can't have heroes with dirty laundry, dontchaknow. One of the reasons I left Reddit was every time someone got praised for an action, there was always an immediate "don't be too quick to give them credit, after all they ... [insert sins here]." Seems like most people have forgotten that it's possble to be heroic and problematic at the same time, and that heroism should still be praised, if only to encourage others. His story isn't important because he was both heroic and problematic, his story is important because people have forgotten that there are no saints, only degrees of sinner, and some grievous sinners deserve our appreciation.
Anyone who thinks they would resist should ask themselves whether they strongly dissent publicly from any of today’s dominant cultural narratives, incurring great personal cost? Almost no one does.
Her and her boyfriend should be embarrassed They don't know what the hell They were even watching in the first place how the hell do you not know what the Holocaust was? They acted shocked every time somebody was killed and that makes no sense if they know what the hell happened? I just don't understand how they could be yet that age they are and not know what the hell happened? I don't know if I've met anybody that doesn't know what the hell happened during world war II?
Yes, respect, but much more significance. Many of the sins of the Torah involve death by stoning. By placing the stone softly and respectfully, your judgment is that they were a righteous person. So, in short one is stating they are a righteous person and well admired because the entire sarcophagus was covered with stones.
To answer the question about the rocks on the grave: Jewish people place rocks as a sign of respect and a sign they visited a loved one. In Jewish tradition, flowers are not used because we believe you shouldn't kill something living to give to the dead.
Also, remember that the man that Oscar Schindler told about the Sabbath at the end of the movie was the hinge maker. He was the Rabbi that prayed in the factory at the end of the film. He was the same man that Amon Goeth tried to kill but couldn't shoot. Every gun and every rifle misfired. I'm an Atheist, but that scene hits me in the guts every time. It may be a one view for some, but I personally watch it pretty regularly. There's nothing here that's dramatized, Pudgey.
@@mattiasandersson8693 That is far more true than most can even imagine. Amon Goth was one of the worst SS officers to oversee a camp. He was so bad that even the German authorities arrested him on charges of cruelty and shut down the camp before the war ended. Imagine being so bad that the SS themselves charge you with crimes against humanity.....
@@ruthl3ssstudio163 the scariest part is that most people are so severely uninformed of the scale and depth of sheer evil that took place. And that most of these atrocities were comitted by seemingly normal people. Its in my opinion the most morbid, horrifying disovery we have made about our speicies, ever. That a majority of people, probably me and you included, could be pushed to do these things under certain circumstances. The fact that this is not more mandatory to learn and study growing up is dooming us to make this horror happen again, and I am afraid we are on the way there already, when looking at the things that are happening all over the world at this very moment
@@808bear2 The scene where the rabbi is being shot at multiple times and the guns didn't fire is not fiction. Rabbi Lewartow really survived that. He mentioned that he indeed said that "the machines were being recalibrated", but that it was a lie, that he tried to say to save his life.
My father used this film to explain what the Holocaust was. He told me his grandparents were survivors of the Dachau concentration camp. He told me the story of how his grandfather was in a camp and was offered water by the Nazis along with everyone else, but the first of them that had to go the bathroom would be shot. So my grandfather and all these other men were dehydrating themselves to try and survive. Thankfully, he was lucky and survived the whole ordeal. This movie will always be more than a movie for me. It's a way to understand my family. God bless Spielberg for making it.
A few of my family members where also in Dachau. and i also use this film and others to try to connect and better understand what my family went through for me to exist today. i also watch inglorious Basterds once in a while as a feel good movie lol
@@Paradox-dy3ve I remember visiting Dachau, just outside of Munich, during my European travels after college. It was a very memorable place, one of the most vivid memories.
The Russian soldier near the end who told them they'd been liberated wasn't a nazi, the soviets fought with the allies AGAINST Hitler's forces. So no, they weren't just "flipping a switch" towards treating them more like normal people- that dude was literally fighting for their side.
Stalin sent over 20 million people to labor camps (most of which died) and Jews were not liked by the Soviet regime either, so where do you go? This is in part why so many traveled to Jeruselem etc
@@MLawrence2008 Yeah, the Russian soldier was on "their side" if you're talking about the Allies, not necessarily so if you were talking about the Jews. At least the character in the movie does give them tips for avoiding trouble with the advancing Russian armies.
He isn't a Russian soldier but a Soviet army soldier. I know it sounds not important but it is (especially today) @MLawrence2008 Stalin was the worst, but it doesn't change the fact that without him and his army, the war would have looked very different. The Jewish population of Europe would have been completely destroyed
@@baronnuuke7821 All good points. And yeah, the USSR definitely deserves recognition for their part in fighting for the Allies. They certainly sacrificed far, far more people than anyone else to the cause, and were holding off Germany for years before US/Britain opened up the Western front.
John Williams really didn't want to do the soundtrack for this movie and told Spielberg that "You need a better composer than I am for this film." Spielberg told him "I know, but they're all dead."
The fact that Amon Göth is almost cartoonishly evil in this movie is all the horrifying when you realize that they had to *tone him down* for this movie; the real Amon was even worse. but Spielberg figured it would be considered too unbelievable if he stuck too much to depicting the real person.
I met once a Jew. He survived the war at Treblinka. He was only 13 in 1945 and he was the single survivor from his entire family. His parents were killed, his sisters, his cousins, his uncles and aunts and his grandparents. After the war he managed to go to the new state of Israel and he became a Mossad agent in the team responsible for finding Nazis. He is 94 years old now and he is still wearing the tattoo on his arm with his number from the camp with dignity. Beno, that's how we call him, told me that he still has nightmares, but from time to time he dreams about his mother, his father, his sisters and the rest of his family. Few days ago he told me that he made his peace with God and that he can hardly wait to meet his family in the afterlife.
I sometimes (wrongly) assume that everyone is aware of the horrors of the holocaust, but after watching your reaction I have been reminded once more how important movies like this are. Essential viewing for everyone, hard as it may be.
My wife's grand-grandma is a survival of holocaust in Ukraine. We have a 3 hour video of the interview with her memories of WWII done, specifically for this movie and a letter from Spielberg. So yeah, very much of this movie is mirroring true events, which is unbelievable. It shows what humans are. And what terrible and good things we are capable of. With recent events in my country, I can only hope that good is stronger than terrible.
Fun Fact: Hellen Hirsch, the woman who survived Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes) actually got to meet Ralph Fiennes in uniform at the set. She was extremely terrified and thought he was the real thing brought back to life. That's how good Ralph Fiennes was in this role.
Yeah, apparently Ralph Fiennes learned Goeth's mannerisms so well a few of the real survivors started to shake when he was on the set.. He looked every part of the high ranking SS Amon Goeth..
My great grandmother was a survivor, she told me how she and her sister were seperated from their parents onto different trains and the last thing her parents said to them was to take care of their brother, who was 4, but he run after their parents and they lost him in crowd, she never saw him and her parents again
I was 14 when this movie came out. I watched it in theaters with my Jewish grandmother. It was one of the most powerful and meaningful moments of my life.
Not so long after the premiere of this movie I read somewhere that Ralph Fiennes was so deeply traumatized by playing his character Amon Goeth during the selection scene (where doctors separated the "useful" prisoners from the weak or sick ones) that he collapsed and burst out in intense crying and the whole film crew has had to wait until he got himself together. So playing such a disgusting person can be really, overwhelmingly tough and he did a marvellous job - just like in any other characters he had to play so far. I also read somewhere that Amon Goeth was waaay worse and much more cruel in real life than how he was pictured in the movie. Just think about it...
I’ve heard that Ralph Fiennes is a really, really nice guy. I’ve heard of other actors and actresses who have been affected that much by playing either extremely evil people or people going through intense trauma. You have to kind of throw yourself into the character to do that well at it, but it comes at a cost.
Good reaction! The reason why Goeth shot the woman engineer was because she dared speak to him as an equal. Goeth was one of the worst in the Holocaust.
What I find particularly interesting is that Amon Göth's daughter in real life, Monika Hertwig (she changed her surname from Göth), didn’t know the true extent of what her father did until watching this film as her mother had lied to her and said her father was a good man and a war hero. Monika actually met with Helen, one of Amon's maids, as part of a documentary called Inheritance.
The young engineer woman who was shot in front of everyone, was also shot in real life for the same reason, her name was Diana Reiter. The only difference is, that in reality she said "it will take more than that" after being shot, and not before, like she does in the movie. I think about her alot actually.
In real life Diana was shot cause a wall had fallen down and Amon blamed her for it he then ordered Hujar to kill her but sadly her death wasn’t as quick as in the film she was whipped many times by him to the point she was covered in blood and then shot more than once💔
Over 42 years ago my wife was working at a retirement/nursing home. One day she was giving a very elderly woman a bed bath. As she was washing her forearm she saw a faded numbered tattoo. The lady said, "Yes, I was a child during all of it." My wife teared up. She told me later, "How could there be anyone who could say it didn't ever happen."
A must-see movie in german schools. We don't shy away from showing and learning about what cruelties had been done in our country. We want it to be known so it can never happen again. I remember going on a school trip to Poland to visit Auschwitz, it was horrible to see that place, but it was necessary to fully understand the horrors. Seeing whole rooms filled with human hair, rooms filled with suitcases, with shoes, with glasses - and you know that every single item once belonged to a person that had family and friends, a person who had dreams and ambitions - all of it taken away with brutal force. It broke me.
"We want it to be known so it can never happen again" Well, that was the case before. Right know some people and especially one party have a new perspective. And in one month are elections in Germany which will underline this development.
@@evatesche Or you could stay and try helping to put a stop to this resurging radicalism. Fleeing the country is hardly helpful. There's also not a place in the world which is in better shape in terms of dealing with its dark past, so I'm not sure who you're trying to fool if not yourself.
@@Poggle_der_Geringere What in the seven hells are you talking about? "Fleeing the country"?!? "Trying to fool"?!? You don't know anything about me. I moved abroad for work nearly two decades ago, found my husband there and stayed.
Ok sorry, I definitely did overreact there. It just triggered me when you said you’re glad you don’t live there anymore now that the right wing is being radicalised. It sounded like Germany is “beyond saving“ which is very far from the truth. Most other countries if not all have it far worse at the moment.
Three points for a great reaction. 1) Oskar and Amon were close friends (for quite some time) in real life. 2) The hair from the haircuts were used for stuffing mattresses and pillows etc as horse hair was in short supply. 3) The people at the end of the movie are the real people alongside the actors who played them in the movie!
What's crazy is that Stephen Spielberg, who directed this movie, released this and Jurassic Park BOTH in the same year. Two absolute classics in very different categories in the same year. Dude was on fire back then
Ralph Fiennes' portrayal of Goeth was so accurate that when a group of survivors of his camp saw him they had to leave because it was too real. But even then Spielberg actually watered down Goeth's cruelty for the film because it was genuinely believed that if they portrayed him 100% accurately no one would believe it was real, he was just that evil.
Just a note, the girl yelling "Goodbye Jews" is actually Polish, and not German or influenced by the Nazis. The hatred of them in most of Europe, especially eastern Europe, had absolutely nothing to do with fascism and was actually just a common traditional attitude based on historical grievances.
Thank you for watching. My family watches it every year because it's important to not forget. I was a bit sad Pudgy rather shut off the movie if it wasn't for this channel, don't look away and ignore those past horrors. Here in the Netherlands we are confronted with this topic from a much earlier age than you!
I saw this in the theater when it came out. The audience was absolutely silent as the theater cleared out. Not a single word. Many of us had clearly been crying. Never experienced this in any other movie. Full theater, absolute silence, and to a person we were shocked and horrified.
"Oh my god why kill him what was the point? What did he even do?" Spartan and Pudgey do know that Jews got killed simply for the reason that they were Jewish? Based on their continuous shocked reactions it seems like they don't
Interesting fact : This movie glorifies only Schindler , but in reality , his wife had a huge hand in saving the Jews . If you do some research on the subject, you'll find a lot of interesting facts 😊 , remember this is not document , this is movie . Anyway, the film fulfilled its purpose , the Nazi atrocities became known to the general public . PS : Amon Goeth was toned down for this movie , in reality he was far more violent. Which is kinda hard to believe .
Yeah, it's a bit strange how diminished of a role Schindler's wife plays in this film although she was quite instrumental. It's an insanely well made film that everyone should watch but that one fact irks me.
Copied from google: Ancient Jews believed that placing the stone on a grave would keep the soul down in this world. Another interpretation is that the stones can keep evil spirits from getting into the graves.
With no source to reference, I had thought that such a practice evolved from placing a stone as an addition to the stones already placed on a grave. Stones which were used as a protective barrier to keep wildlife from the corpse. Later, it became a symbol that someone who cared about the deceased had visited. A calling card, if you will. Much like what you may see in the present of a coin placed on a gravestone.
My family and I lived in Jerusalem for a couple of years and got to visit Schindler’s grave twice. My Dad, my brother, and I went to Krakow, Poland in May 2006 and went to a few film locations of Schindler’s List. The remains of the factory, including that long staircase, and the hill where Schindler and his riding companion witnessed the liquidation of the ghetto. The music really breaks you; John Williams truly is a master. And Itzhak Perlman, a renowned violinist throughout the world, does that violin solo very well
@@tomgerasch560 It was very different from state to state in Germany and even between schools in my hometown. The students of the (public) catholic high school didn't watch the movie at all.
@@DarklynNightsong The movie is not fiction. Amon Göth was a real person, same as Oskar Schindler and the names on the list. Not to mention the Krakov ghetto and everything that happened at Auschwitz. You can look up the original records for yourself and visit the original sites (not just Auschwitz) if you want. We (as in Germans) were and still are very meticulious when it comes to record keeping. Edit: Feel free to watch the films of U.S. and Sovjet/Russian soldiers when they arrived at the concentration camps, plus there are still a few veterans alive to speak to them in person.
One of the heaviest experiences of my life was meeting an old man who rented an apartment for vacations. My sister and I crossed with him a few times and talked a little more each time. One time he felt more comfortable and opened up. He ended up pulling his leave and had a number of the concentration camp tattooed on his arm. At that moment I felt like all I had learned and seen about the war was like a movie and suddenly became real. This was 24 years ago and still brings me tears when I remember.
The scene in which the Soviet soldier says that he has "liberated" them makes a very profound statement. He says, "Don't go east, that's for sure. They hate you there. I wouldn't go west either, if I were you." Pudgy asked the right question: "Then, where do you go?" This was perfect exposition and writing. This scene shows why the Jews went back to their homeland in Israel. They had dwelt in the land of "Canaan" since the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel. They were carried into exile by the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians. Yet, they returned. They were subsequently ruled by the Greeks and the Romans. Eventually, the Romans (who were brutally oppressive) destroyed the Jewish temple and most of Jerusalem. They exiled the Jews and renamed the land "Palestine" (after Israel's Philistine enemies). By World War 2, the Jews were still living in exile from that territory. At the end of the war (and, really, even before the war began), there was a push to return the Jews to their ancient homeland. The British controlled the land. Through the Balfour Declaration, they designated part of it as a Jewish homeland because many Europeans didn't want Jews living there. This plan was interrupted by the war and the attempt by the German National Socialists (aka "Nazis") to utterly destroy and completely annihilate the Jewish race. By the end of the war, the Allied powers supported this effort to take part of that British territory of which the Romans renamed "Palestine" -- the ancient homeland of Israel -- and make part of it a Jewish country. So, the question: "Then, where do you go?" is followed by the understanding of why Israel exists as a nation today. Less than three years after the war, Israel was formally founded as a revived nation.
@@jordanwright1061 You think a movie is going to stop humans from being horrendous creatures capable of anything? Because knowing humans it will happen again... No matter how many movies you make.
@@zammmerjammer yup, if there is one thing about humans, it is that they don't learn from history. And the reason for this is that all the people who are in power, whether elected or by military coup or other means, are the worst of humanity. And as long as war is profitable and as long as people want power and money, nothing will ever change. I am ashamed to be a part of the human race. I feel like an alien from another universe, because I cannot fathom the how and the why of it.
Hey Spartan and Pudgey, I think you guys eventually got the symbolism of the girl in the red coat. -------- She was meant to represents a similar girl Schindler saw when the Jewish ghettos were being raided and everyone murdered. -------- He saw this little girl walking about in the swell of people and no one took notice of her. --------- No one noticed her, Not the Jewish people running for their lives nor the Germans chasing them. ------- To him, this little girl symbolized the apathy that had descended over the German society. Truly heart wrenching and sad.
I will never forget a great piece of photoshopped artwork about fictional children as adults, it was the Berlin Wall coming down and a young woman standing on top with arms raised in victory. The whole picture was black and white, apart from her red coat.
at 1:01:37 ... the soldier on the horse was a Russian soldier...the Soviet Army liberated some of the largest concentration camps, such as Auschwitz. The Soviet troops freed thousands of prisoners who had been left behind by the retreating Nazis.
The beginning of one of the most eduring bromances in Hollywood history. Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson remain like brothers. Fiennes is godfather to one of Liam's sons and wrote an obit for Liam's late wife Natasha Richardson.
Legendary actors in this film, including a young Liam Neeson, a young Ralph Fiennes (Pudgy was right about Voldemort) but also the quiet Jewish guy who is none other than Ben Kingsley. One of the best films ever made. Too heavy on the conscience. Oscar Shindler died in poverty. RIP.
Interesting fact: A woman who survived Auschwitz was on set and met Ralp Fiennes (and yes, he did play Voldemort) in full costume and started trembling when she saw him because of the likeness to Goeth. Jews are not allowed to drink strong Alcohol which is why Stern did not want to drink with him.
My grandfather was part of the Third Army under General Patton when Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated. He never talked about what he saw there to anyone in the family except to say,”I didn’t know people could do that to other people.”
My great Uncle was the same, he said nobody would believe what they saw when liberating Buchenwald. He and another soldier took down the Nazi flag, that had been new a week before. He brought that home, 2 gas chamber spigets, and some bone. My sister took the flag in 1968 to show and tell, she was 14, studying the war. The Nazi party in America contacted my dad approximately 3 months later and wanted the flag as it actually flown in Germany at a camp. My dad just lied and said you have the wrong people. 1991 my dad donated all of it the the Simon Weisenthal holocaust museum in Beverly Hill, CA. They gave the bone a proper Jewish burial. The flag hangs in that museum, the ONLY place for a Nazi flag to hang. My uncle didn’t speak much of some of the atrocities he witnessed, but it is something he never forgot.
Here in Israel, we have Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial. Part of that is dedicated to the children. You walked through the exhibit, and there’s one flame, and it’s surrounded by mirrors. So that flame is reflected thousands of times. Disappearing into the mirrors. And it’s meant to symbolize that one life taken affected future generations forever. Millions of people gone because you killed this child. When you were walking through the exhibit as well, there’s a narration that just says the names of the victims, and their ages. Hearing these names, with something like six years old or three years old next to them is just both heartbreaking and disgusting.
The significance of the rocks is what we put on a grave. We don’t put flowers on graves. They are temporary and they die. But a rock is forever. So if you’re ever here in Israel, for instance, on all the graves you will see stones of people that have visited them. They’ll put a stone on the headstone.
44:26 I feel you, Pudgey. Schindler's List is not only one of the greatest films ever made, but also one of the most important. The world must *never* forget the atrocities that were committed, not in the dark ages, but *in the middle of the 20th century.* That said, as brilliant and important as this film is, it is SO emotionally draining that I have only ever been able to watch it twice. Even reactions to it, I have to skim through because it simply takes too much of a toll on me. So again, I completely understand your sentiment.
@@nicknickson3650 That's nowhere near the same thing. Get real. Your reply is irrelevant to the topic at hand. This is about the WW II holocaust, not the current war between Israel and Palestine.
Not really. Spielberg explained she was supposed to represent the genocide happening in Europe, as evident as a red girl in a black and white film, and nobody did anything
I think she is just meant to be someone to stand out among all of the chaos. Terrible things happened and millions of people died, it is extremely hard to conceptualize millions of people dying, but focusing on just one person allows you to understand. Focusing on a young innocent girl where the tragedy of it is even worse, truly exemplifies that tragedy. It is still impossible to conceptualize millions of innocent people dying, but understanding one life truly puts into perspective how unfathomable it is.
@@Michaelonyoutub That’s a good to look at it. Empathy for one obviously innocent life. Personally, I felt most touched when I saw the kids waving from the trucks taking them away from their mothers.
As others have said, the ending shows the real life people alongside the actors who played them in the movie. Quite the surreal realization once you understand what you're seeing.
As horrific as the portrayals are, the realities of the Holocaust were so much worse. A few years ago I undertook a study of the Holocaust and read more than a dozen books by survivors. Even if TH-cam wouldn’t take down my comments, I don’t think I could bring myself to type the words to describe some of the events. And I’m a rather stoic person. I think the choice of using B&W was a masterstroke. Color would have gotten in the way of the core elements and emotions of the story. Another great and highly recommended movie along these lines is The Pianist (2002) directed by Roman Polanski. That great film is another true story about a concert pianist in Poland, and his experiences. Polanski experienced the Holocaust as an adolescent, and elements of his own story find their way into the film. Very highly recommended.
You can’t, it has to come from the writers of these stories to be spoken. We can read, listen, and watch, but to even think of sharing someone’s experience with the holocaust with voice is extremely disrespectful…
Black & white can sometimes match the tone or mood of the film better than color - color might lessen the tension, or decrease the sense of doom or distract the audience from the deeper themes or emotions. Color doesn’t always add useful information (it might not matter what color the costumes are, or the background.) High contrast black & white, with its deep shadows and intense key lighting is a beautiful art form on its own; just like other art forms, not all subject matter in films is required to be done in only one way. Film Noir is mostly done in black & white which increases the atmosphere of mystery, criminality, fear, suspense or heightens the themes which the film is exploring. A film that is famous for its stark black & white and creative varieties of gray is the British film: The Third Man.
Also, everyone is used to seeing the real events of the time in black and white newsreel footage only, so using it here is a clear statement by the filmmakers: "This isn't just a Hollywood story - this really happened."
Steven Spielberg said the girl in the red coat was to catch those watching this film off guard. It is a reminder of the individuality of those who suffered under the Nazi regime. Without the coloured coat this little girl would have blended in with those around her and just be counted as another number. The usage of red was to convey to the audience that this girl like all those who lost their lives had hopes, dreams and aspirations that unfortunately were not realised.
There was an actual 'girl in red' in the Krakow ghetto, around three years old. She stood out so much in her red coat among all the drab greys and blacks of everyone else, she was known as 'little strawberry'. She survived the war.
Glad you watched this. It’s important history. I’m a history & military history buff. Two of my favorite eras are the Roman Empire & WW2 especially as a US Army veteran. The German army of WW2 was one of the greatest armies ever & their tactics, weapons & technology had a huge influence on modern weapons & warfare. They receive much more praise however the atrocities of the Holocaust casts a terrible shadow over the whole of Germany. Anyway while viewing this you cannot view these events with a normal lens or with modern values. “Presentism” is viewing the past through the lens of modern morality & values. Also you cannot look at the events in this film or judge the people under a normal lens so to speak. That is you cannot judge motivations but rather just look at the consequences & results if you get me. For example Spartan was saying that Schinlder used these workers because they were cheap which is exploitation. This is true but that value judgement doesn’t matter. The context matters because this time period was so extraordinary. Israel & the Jews hold Schinlder as “Righteous Among Nations.” It doesn’t matter that he was exploiting cheap labor or profiting off the war. Later his motivations changed but that is besides the point. What matters is that he was saving lives. At around @19:00 Pudgey was taken aback that Stern was saved from the train but that the other people on the train “didn’t matter” & Spartan was miffed Schindler said “Where would I be” in regard to Stern almost being sent away on the train. You cannot view it with regular eyes or value. I wish I could explicate this better. Of course it’s an impossible situation. They knew the other people were likely being sent to die but you cannot look at it with normal morality. Think of it as choosing the best course of action when every choice was awful. It’s about navigating a situation where nothing was certain except that one simple mistake meant certain death. It’s about saving as many possible or rather not letting as many people die as you can. Pudgey made the observation that choosing who worked & who didn’t must have been hard for the council. It was literally a life or death choice. It was a terrible decision but had to be done. Of course families, friends & connected people got preferential treatment. That’s how it is. Wasnit right? No But again extraordinary times calls for extraordinary measures. None of this was fair but it is easy to judge from afar with hindsight. Thousands were saved instead of none. That is what matters. There were Jewish helpers called Sonderkommando like the Jewish ghetto & camp police. Many would consider them sellouts but they had to do terrible things to survive & they were placed in auspicious positions which saved themselves (not always) & allowed them to get extra food or smuggle in things & smuggle out things like messages. The Jewish helpers or Sonderkommando even had to participate in deaths & cleaning up the dead bodies. Again you cam judge them for all the actions under simple morality or strict ethics like Kant’s categorical imperative which basically says you must always do the right thing. They had to do terrible things but you have to look at it under more of a utilitarian view. They had to pick the devil they knew versus the devil they didn’t or choose the lesser of two evils. In this way many survived. Because of this there are thousands of relatives now who survived due to the efforts of Schindler & others. Now it’s a very complex situation & I could go further in depth but it’s outside of the scope of a comment. Besides most people don’t want to read a long comment. I hope that I was able to explain things well enough. It’s difficult to articulate. Explaining how judging the actions, events & people under “normal” rules or morality, & judging their motivation at face value is a natural thing to do but again, you have to remember the context & situation - you cannot judge these things in a regular way as you have to understand the terrible circumstances. The phrase “Desperate times calls for desperate measures” is the best way to think of the people & their actions. You can’t judge these people & their actions under simple right or wrong terms but like I said it must be done under utilitarian terms. Did it help in any way or help the greater good of the Jews or not? Sometimes they had to make terrible or impossible decisions but had to use the “lesser of two evils” calculus. As I said it wasn’t always right but it was about survival & many survived when they were basically all doomed. On a side note: this is an extremely serious & dour movie that is also very macabre however despite this Spielberg smartly put in some moments of levity like the Germans calling for Stern at the train after the transfer threat by Oskar or the young boy with Commandant Goeth & the chicken. Moments of levity or any minor comedic scenes might seem out of place or inappropriate but they work. First the topic is so heavy & depressing the levity helps the audience breathe. Also in life or death situations finding something to laugh or smile about can literally be life saving. It doesn’t trivialize the atrocities or death but rather brings it all into sharper relief. I am a terrible teacher & am poor at articulating concepts or ideas in a cogent & detailed manner so I hope that I was able to explain things well enough.
About the rocks, if I remember (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) Jewish people leave them on graves, as we leave flowers. Jews just don't want a symbol of their memory being something of so short living time, so they choose stone, which remains for centuries. Also, always great to see somebody learning little bit of this part of the history❤
I'm Jewish, and my grandparents told me that in the countries they fled from and were chased out of, putting small rocks on graves was the only way to mark that patch of ground as a burial place of a Jewish person, since the Jewish people weren't allowed to formally mark their graves. This happened in Europe and in the Middle East.
@@YuvalOfir-yg9ml thank you, I didn't think about that. Reading other comments on this topic and as I talked to few Jewish people here in Poland I think that there are as many specific reasons as many people. Best wishes for you and your family
@@YuvalOfir-yg9ml I'm sorry to contradict you. I'm sure this is a good reason. But also in other countries, like mine, we put a rock or earth on the graves. It is simply a symbol that indicates that everyone buries the dead together.
The amount of people using this comment section to make what they think is some completely false and 'profound' statement about Gaza is fucking disgusting.
Kudos for watching this masterpiece. There's certainly a deep level of pain that we express watching prototypical WWII films portraying heroism and sacrifice. This piece of art goes much further both viscerally and psychologically. There is no heroism or glory in any of it. It's brutality at an industrial level to the point of disbelief. For these people, survival is the only war they knew. I feel numb just writing this 😢.
46:13 it is not quite clear to everyone, but this scene is exhuming all the mass graves and burning the evidence of the deathtoll. This was around the time that the tide of the war was turning
I appreciate Spartan seeing what Oskar was at first and technically throughout for pointing out while he did save some lives but he was a war profiteer. Eventually I'm sure he grew to understand and appreciate the work he was doing. And Pudgy right that is Voldemort Ralph Fiennes
My son played in a TV series an SS lieutenant who was hunting jews in Warsaw during the war. After the first day of shooting he came home almost depressed because of his character. He said to me: "Dad, these guys were so cruel! During the day I am hunting for Jews and at night we go partying like nothing happend!". He was very impressed and very sad about it.
My father joined the Canadian Air Force about 7-8 years after WWII. At one time he was reviewing captured nazi films of some death camps. From what he said he saw, literally made him vomit. He told me it made him sick for days. None of us could even begin to imagine the horror of those who had to live through it.
My father (God rest his soul) was a 19 year old American soldier in 1944/45 who saw some of this during his war time experiences in Germany. The only reason I know this is because of the research I did on his unit's service. He never once spoke of it to anyone in our familly...not even my mother.
Placing rocks on a grave in the Jewish tradition is a very old tradition. There are differing explanations, but stones outlast flowers is one belief and it can represent efforts at permanence.
The girl in red was not in red for fun and also not to show her as a corpse at the end. The girl in red was there because she was supposed to be the turning point for Schindler. Göth was portrayed in the movie as more human than he was. Or rather, not as monstrous as it was, because it would have made the movie unbelievable. At least that was the fear. As an example, Göth fed newborns alive to his dogs while the parents had to watch. Unfortunately, this is not an exaggeration. On the other hand, it was not shown or mentioned that Jews betrayed each other and were thus directly responsible for various killings. To gain an advantage from the guards. At least that's what they believed. That usually didn't help, others saved their own lives by betraying others again and again. In the end, the actors walked side by side next to the people they played. A halfway clever person comes up with it himself. "It seems like it actually happened." Wtf. Of course, that's history. From the beginning there was writing with place and date and what happened there at the time and the two only realize towards the end that this is a true story, or rather history. Omg
This film is one of the few that I feel genuine anguish when watching. It's so hard to watch the sheer cruelty and injustice done by the Nazis, knowing that this actually happened.
The crazy part is how willingly and eager some of us seem to be about repeating horror, despite possessing the knowledge. Like it's edgy and provocative.
Its because this violence was directed at specific group people, and those who wish to instigate this violence again know they are part of the group that will be safe from subjugation and execution. The Nazi propaganda has been allowed to circulate, under the guise of free speech, which has allowed people to either be manipulated into hate with lies, or allowed them to fuel their already existing hate with lies.
@@IanM92 Sorry, an invasion of Israel in which hundreds of people were murdered in the most brutal possible way, not as collateral damage, but on purpose, followed by demonstrations all over the west against Israel for retaliating, with demonstraters chanting that Israel must be destroyed? It seems like a movement toward another holocaust.
Truly disturbing how quickly it went from "never again" to "our turn now". Someday movies will be made about the atrocities done to the Palestinians and people will say, how could the world let it happen again?
@@Knightowl1980 When I see that sort of thing, I wonder if the actor is keeping to himself some serious financial problems that require him to take any paying work he can get. I believe Nick Cage has been known for this, and I recently learned John Malkovich lost all his money to Bernie Madoff and had to start taking any and every role he could get to try to recover.
Three more bits of note: At the burning scene when Goeth tells Schindler they have to dig up "every rag and burn it" The word '"rag" was used as a slur to refer to Jews. (I am unsure of dates, but I'm assuming it was something to do with Jews wearing nothing but rags) In the last days of the 3rd Reich, it was adopted by Jews themselves to describe the dead, as "corpse" "body" and other such labels were a reminder that the dead person in question was, in fact, a person. And the person had been murdered. Acknowledgement of that made the Nazis uncomfortable. While I am totally onboard with making Nazis uncomfortable, the simple fact remained that by that point in time, an uncomfortable Nazi with an already short fuse had a very, very, very, very, very twitchy trigger finger and could transition from "making your life a living hell" to "now you're dead" in less than half a second. I'm not condoning anything, I'm just explaining. Near the end, as Schindler is leaving the factory, he makes reference to cigarettes "that we organized". This is also a Jewish euphemism. As it said in the beginning, it was illegal to buy or trade goods on the black market. Goods were no longer "acquired" or "bought", they were "organized" Finally, the text states that there are over 6000 descendants of the Schindlerjuden. That was in 1993. The number, as of March last year, is now double that. There is no possible way to prepare yourself for a film like this. But we need films like this. We need to acknowledge the darkest parts of human history, so that we know the depths of what humanity is capable of, and then make the conscious, moral decision to never do the same. You're not the only ones who can't understand. Who could? This film will make you look at yourself in a whole new light, and leave you with deeply unsettling questions. It's depressing, but eventually you will learn that you will never understand this, and your questions will never be answered. Eventually I had to travel to one of those camps and see for myself and let me tell you....this movie may bludgeon you over the head with a 100lb weight, but it is nothing compared to the invisible weight in those places. They press down on you with an almost physical aspect. Walking by the piles of shoes and glasses so tall they reach the ceilings and fill entire rooms is a punch to the gut, and even if you are there with 500 or so other ....I hesitate to call it tourists...visitors, it is silent and still. No one talks. All you want to do is flee the oppressive, heavy nature of the very air you're struggling to breathe. But you still won't understand. You will leave with no answers.
Spartan and Pudgey, one of the most gut-wrenching parts of the movie is when the little boy has to jump in the latrine to hide from the Germans. ------- I just picture myself hiding from a monster in a filthiest place I could ever imagine and times that by 10. -------- Only to be told by other kids to get out, this is there place to hide. ------- At that moment, I always become that little boy cold and afraid, hiding from the monsters.
51:24 clerical errors were common during this time. Thankfully, this one was prevented. Corrie ten Boom gained her freedom due to a clerical error. I recommend "the Hiding Place" movie based on her book of this time.
As a Dutch person living in a country that was taken over by and heavily struck by the Nazi's, I learned A LOT about WO2 in school. It's such an important part of the history of my country. The scene of the jew neighbourhood being raided and all the people being shot and taken, these razzia's happened all over the Netherlands/Europe. Every year on May 4th we have a national memorial ceremony in Amsterdam, that is broadcasted live on tv, were the entire country holds 3 minutes of silence to honor all that have fallen victim in WO2. On May 5th we celebrate our liberation as a country.
It didn´t happen like this in Holland. Everything in Holland went more smoothly and not that violent. Even the transitcamp Westerbork was much more "peacefull", the Germans were able to fool the Jewish population. In Poland the Germans didn't even try to hide their true intensions.
"Robin Williams, Spielberg said, was keenly aware of the toll Schindler’s was about to take on his friend-so he made it a habit to regularly call Spielberg and cheer him up during the brutal shoot in Poland"
Appreciate Spartan picking up on Schindlers not so stellar motives at the beginning. He’s a famous and decisive historical figure for a reason. Ultimately a hero, but started out as cold, calculating, and immoral as the worst of them.
One of the greatest movies ever made. You actually should watch it at least once more. You learn and understand it even better. Well, I grew up with this movie. Being born and raised in Germany what was told in school wasnt nearly enough. This movie sparked something in me and made me watch all the documentaries that were there. So glad you watched it. We should never forget the past.
Denmark were the exception, where non of this happened. It's difficult to explain exactly why, but no one in Denmark wore the yellow star or any other identification mark during the war, so that was also highly unusual.
The Germans did capture 464 Jews who did not manage to escape, though mainly the elderly, but even here the Danish government managed to pressure the Germans to not deport any of them to the death camps and also to allow the Danish red cross to provide food parcels and monitor their health. Still, a total of 51 of the captives got sick and died of old age or disease at the camp.
The thing that causes confusion the most, It is for a people to go through a disaster like this and then do the same heinous acts against other people , not all of them , only the (Z)
They probably assume/believe that events like this are the very justification for whatever they choose to do to anyone who isn't part of their group. "They would do worse to us, given the chance."
This is, honestly, one of those movies I feel everyone should watch at least once. But I will never have the strength to watch the whole movie again. Spielberg did an incredible job on this movie, and it was released the same year as Jurassic Park. Everything from the acting to the filming is incredible and painful.
Nothing could have prepared us for this movie...💔
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I know I tease sometimes about pudgey laughing) crying. This is so such a deep movie, I'm so glad to watch with you guys. You guys are so genuine and fun. Thanks!!
George Soros was 13 or 14 during this time. The nazis paid him to help them hunt down and find hiding jews. Soros is a jew.
Guys I gotta ask ? Seen Death to Smoochie with Robin Williams and Ed Norton.
1:04:19
The significance of those rocks is that they were thrown by Palestinian children, by showing them at the end the story comes to a full circle with Israelis becoming the new Nazis.
@@pxpq 🤣 wow.
I know that Amon Goeth is a despicable character but holy shit what a performance by Ralph Fiennes, outstanding.
Honestly, the ability to embody the character of a truly horrendous individual and make it convincing, in my opinion, is a much greater level of talent than portraying a morally good character. Most of the best acting performances I've seen have either been villains or characters with some sort of immorally aligned inner compass, and I believe it's because the best actors don't shy away from embracing that dark, corrupt and twisted side of humanity for the role.
There’s a pretty famous interaction where Ralph Fiennes met an actual survivor while in uniform, and the survivor literally trembled because Fiennes resembled the real Goeth so much
And to make matters worse, the real Amon Goeth is said to have been far worse than what Spielberg portrays. Apparently he was worried about allegations of exaggerating the horrors of the Holocaust, so Goeth had to be watered down from the real thing.
@@daniel_sannguyen IIRC she was the real Helen Hirsch (?), but I don't think that was her real name. The maid "employed" by Amon Goeth. I could be wrong.
@@joshuawells835 That is exactly right. The real Amon Goeth was put into prison himself before the end of the war because he went too far even for the Nazis.
at the end it is the actors who played the person with the actual people
or in some cases the actors with surviving relatives of their characters. Like with Ben Kingsley and Stern's widow.
Yes! I didn't put that together when I watched the movie for the first (and only) time. I've watched many reactions though and I learned this from a reactor saying it. I didn't catch it, I think, because I was crying and it all was so emotional. Amazing movie depicting just a horrific period in our shared history. ❤🩹
@@nooneofconsequence1251 I saw this movie when it came out in theaters. I might be wrong but I remember at the time from interview from the cast or Steven Spielberg himself, that Stern is actually the lady in real life, Steven decided to change her character to a man & hired Ben Kingsley to play her.
@@jcgpisces579Could I have some of what you are smoking?
@@jcgpisces579 uh... no... don't know where you hear that or what you might be thinking of but Itzhak Stern was a man. He died in 1969 at the age of 68. He was survived by his widow, Sophia Backenrot, who appeared at the end of the film alongside actor Ben Kingsley. I think in the film they even identify her as Stern's widow...
The "I could've got one more" scene broke me...oh who am I kidding? This entire movie broke me.
As it should. It was made to show the depravity and horror of it all. Also to show the brightness of GOOD, when it stares down the fires of HELL.
Me too but it's unfortunately only a director's fantasy
Breaks me every damn time. Shit, a couple years ago I took the family to John Williams' "Maestro of the Movies" show at the Hollywood Bowl and within two measures of the theme for Schindler's List I broke.
"Funnily" enough, it's quoted in the cartoon series X-Men 97. Magneto's backstory is that he is a holocaust survivor. There's an episode where genocide happens and in the midst of rescuing people he yells out, "We will not live our days wondering if we could have saved more". That show is a masterpiece, for little things like that, but it just goes to show how impactful this part was in this movie.
@@antoninsvrdlik7526it's based on true events, obviously it won't be like a documentary.
The reason why the other Germans were so cooperative and trusting, and some were frankly terrified of Schindler, isn't often mentioned in comments about the movie. Schindler isn't wearing an ordinary Party membership badge. He's wearing the Golden Party Badge, a special award reserved for those most honored by the Party as heroes and often held by senior SS, Party, and government officials. When threatening those two with being in Southern Russia, they took him very seriously. Schindler was involved in Party activities in the Sudetenland, fighting to join those parts of Czechoslovakia with Germany as part of German military intelligence before WWII. He was wanted by the Czech authorities after the war precisely because of those pre-war crimes, but avoided being extradited from the West due to the intervention of the Schindler Jews with the occupation authorities.
Okay damn I didn't know he was a part of selling the Czechs out. Kinda lost a lot of respect for him
@@cassu6 Schindler was a lot more complicated and gray fellow than the hero Spielberg made him out to be in the film. His actions before the war were done in the context of a German nationalist. From his subsequent actions though, he obviously didn't buy into the totality of the Party's program and quite clearly took steps to oppose it.
@cassu6 He was an Abwher agent who was actively involved in run up to the invasion of Poland as well. He was not a good dude, but he at least found his conscious by the end of the war.
Schindler provided the Polish uniforms for the German army that were used in the false flag operation that was used to justify the invasion.
Knowing this detail provides a very different perspective on why he broke down at the end. He realized and accepted that he was at least partly responsible for the death of all of the other relatives of those that he saved.
I am pretty sure Schindler was selfish and rotten inside but accidentaly did something good. This is why I hate the scene in the end of the film where his workers thanks him - I consider it disgusting. This movie is BASED on real event but it is mainly Spilberg's fanfiction. Btw. events in the camps were much worse than washed up scenes in the movie.
I saw Stephen Fry talk about an interview he once did. It was with a jewish women that survived the Holocaust. She was a good violin player and the SS officer she got to loved classical music, and she used to play just that. She told Fry about how he called her out of a room and told her to play a Mozart piece (I think it was, at least a very hard to play piece of music). When she was done, he said "that was all". Stephen then asked her, You didn't get a thank you? You just played one of the most amazing piece of music that very few people can play and he doesn't even thank you. Her response was, ohh you sweet innocent man, you don't understand, we where not human for them. Do you say thank you to the radio when it have played music for you?
That line is what really made it click in me from hearing about them not thinking of them as humans to understanding what those words actually entails.
That's how this works. You demonize and dehumanize a group of people and tell everyone it's their fault things are bad. When people believe that they will do the most despicable things to those minorities and not even feel bad about it because they're not human. That's why Trump speaking of vermin poisoning the blood of america is so devious and awful.
Wasn't he in FUTURAMA
He tells about that in his one on one interviews with Craig Ferguson... it's an phenomenal conversation.
That movie, about that woman and the orchestra was called "Playing For Time" and it was an amazing piece of work.
What makes the Schindler story so compelling and so important is that he wasn't a saint. He was a deeply flawed human being who, at a time when many other flawed human beings gave in to their baser nature, decided to do what he could for what was right. Anyone who looks at that period of history and thinks they would act flawlessly according to the standards of today is deluding themselves, but we can all look at ourselves and think that perhaps we would have done what we could in spite of ourselves: and whilst that is no comfort to the masses that didn't make it, it meant everything to those lucky few. That line "there will be generations because of what you did" hits so damned hard. This isn't a movie that anyone really wants to watch, but it's a movie everyone needs to watch because history has an unfortunate habit of repeating itself. Spielberg's genius was in making it absolutely riveting whilst being just comfortable enough to bear...
** Top Comment **
Interesting. Very few people who have a chance to be heroic are saints -- that's just how humanity works. But contemporary people don't get the benefit of their good deeds if someone finds ugly flaws.
If Schindler did the equivalent today, about 5% of folks would praised him for his incredbile actions, then he'd be dogpiled by the 95% for his flaws. Can't have heroes with dirty laundry, dontchaknow. One of the reasons I left Reddit was every time someone got praised for an action, there was always an immediate "don't be too quick to give them credit, after all they ... [insert sins here]."
Seems like most people have forgotten that it's possble to be heroic and problematic at the same time, and that heroism should still be praised, if only to encourage others. His story isn't important because he was both heroic and problematic, his story is important because people have forgotten that there are no saints, only degrees of sinner, and some grievous sinners deserve our appreciation.
Anyone who thinks they would resist should ask themselves whether they strongly dissent publicly from any of today’s dominant cultural narratives, incurring great personal cost? Almost no one does.
Pudgey, the significance of putting rocks on a grave is to show respect.
Flowers die, rocks don't. ♥️
Her and her boyfriend should be embarrassed They don't know what the hell They were even watching in the first place how the hell do you not know what the Holocaust was? They acted shocked every time somebody was killed and that makes no sense if they know what the hell happened? I just don't understand how they could be yet that age they are and not know what the hell happened? I don't know if I've met anybody that doesn't know what the hell happened during world war II?
Exactly! Going back to the time of the patriarchs and making altars and pillars out of "undressed" stones.
Yes, respect, but much more significance. Many of the sins of the Torah involve death by stoning. By placing the stone softly and respectfully, your judgment is that they were a righteous person. So, in short one is stating they are a righteous person and well admired because the entire sarcophagus was covered with stones.
@@TheTurtlee1 and, to add on to this, we also don't believe in killing a living thing (flowers) to give to the dead.
@@TheTurtlee1 Interesting, I did not know this.
To answer the question about the rocks on the grave: Jewish people place rocks as a sign of respect and a sign they visited a loved one. In Jewish tradition, flowers are not used because we believe you shouldn't kill something living to give to the dead.
Also, remember that the man that Oscar Schindler told about the Sabbath at the end of the movie was the hinge maker. He was the Rabbi that prayed in the factory at the end of the film. He was the same man that Amon Goeth tried to kill but couldn't shoot. Every gun and every rifle misfired. I'm an Atheist, but that scene hits me in the guts every time.
It may be a one view for some, but I personally watch it pretty regularly. There's nothing here that's dramatized, Pudgey.
In fact it is severely toned down. It would not be allowed to screen in public if it was fully accurate
@@mattiasandersson8693 That is far more true than most can even imagine. Amon Goth was one of the worst SS officers to oversee a camp. He was so bad that even the German authorities arrested him on charges of cruelty and shut down the camp before the war ended. Imagine being so bad that the SS themselves charge you with crimes against humanity.....
@@ruthl3ssstudio163 the scariest part is that most people are so severely uninformed of the scale and depth of sheer evil that took place. And that most of these atrocities were comitted by seemingly normal people. Its in my opinion the most morbid, horrifying disovery we have made about our speicies, ever. That a majority of people, probably me and you included, could be pushed to do these things under certain circumstances. The fact that this is not more mandatory to learn and study growing up is dooming us to make this horror happen again, and I am afraid we are on the way there already, when looking at the things that are happening all over the world at this very moment
Yes if you look up how this book is listed as fiction in your local library you will see why your Rabbi made it till the end.
@@808bear2 The scene where the rabbi is being shot at multiple times and the guns didn't fire is not fiction. Rabbi Lewartow really survived that. He mentioned that he indeed said that "the machines were being recalibrated", but that it was a lie, that he tried to say to save his life.
My father used this film to explain what the Holocaust was.
He told me his grandparents were survivors of the Dachau concentration camp. He told me the story of how his grandfather was in a camp and was offered water by the Nazis along with everyone else, but the first of them that had to go the bathroom would be shot.
So my grandfather and all these other men were dehydrating themselves to try and survive. Thankfully, he was lucky and survived the whole ordeal.
This movie will always be more than a movie for me. It's a way to understand my family. God bless Spielberg for making it.
A few of my family members where also in Dachau. and i also use this film and others to try to connect and better understand what my family went through for me to exist today. i also watch inglorious Basterds once in a while as a feel good movie lol
@@Paradox-dy3ve I remember visiting Dachau, just outside of Munich, during my European travels after college. It was a very memorable place, one of the most vivid memories.
This movie is incredibly hard to watch in the best possible way, and I personally think it should be watched by everyone at least once in their life.
The Russian soldier near the end who told them they'd been liberated wasn't a nazi, the soviets fought with the allies AGAINST Hitler's forces. So no, they weren't just "flipping a switch" towards treating them more like normal people- that dude was literally fighting for their side.
Stalin sent over 20 million people to labor camps (most of which died) and Jews were not liked by the Soviet regime either, so where do you go? This is in part why so many traveled to Jeruselem etc
@@MLawrence2008 Yeah, the Russian soldier was on "their side" if you're talking about the Allies, not necessarily so if you were talking about the Jews.
At least the character in the movie does give them tips for avoiding trouble with the advancing Russian armies.
He isn't a Russian soldier but a Soviet army soldier. I know it sounds not important but it is (especially today)
@MLawrence2008 Stalin was the worst, but it doesn't change the fact that without him and his army, the war would have looked very different. The Jewish population of Europe would have been completely destroyed
@@baronnuuke7821 All good points.
And yeah, the USSR definitely deserves recognition for their part in fighting for the Allies. They certainly sacrificed far, far more people than anyone else to the cause, and were holding off Germany for years before US/Britain opened up the Western front.
~ well maybe ~
The USSR was pretty antisemitic. Not a surprise given Marx's position. But that one soldier may have been sympathetic.
John Williams really didn't want to do the soundtrack for this movie and told Spielberg that "You need a better composer than I am for this film." Spielberg told him "I know, but they're all dead."
@@patrickwaldeck6681 🙂↔️🙂↕️😌😔 sad and poinent.
The fact that Amon Göth is almost cartoonishly evil in this movie is all the horrifying when you realize that they had to *tone him down* for this movie; the real Amon was even worse. but Spielberg figured it would be considered too unbelievable if he stuck too much to depicting the real person.
I met once a Jew. He survived the war at Treblinka. He was only 13 in 1945 and he was the single survivor from his entire family. His parents were killed, his sisters, his cousins, his uncles and aunts and his grandparents. After the war he managed to go to the new state of Israel and he became a Mossad agent in the team responsible for finding Nazis. He is 94 years old now and he is still wearing the tattoo on his arm with his number from the camp with dignity. Beno, that's how we call him, told me that he still has nightmares, but from time to time he dreams about his mother, his father, his sisters and the rest of his family. Few days ago he told me that he made his peace with God and that he can hardly wait to meet his family in the afterlife.
The heroes like that man helped pull the plug on Nazis and their collabs that found sanctuary in the West, eternal respect.
@@dopetimist there are lots and lots of them that continued happily in Germany, Austria, and the USA
why he wasnt that brave back then?
@@dopetimist communists and russians were far worse
@@ichkeriyalamro5553 at 13 years old?
I sometimes (wrongly) assume that everyone is aware of the horrors of the holocaust, but after watching your reaction I have been reminded once more how important movies like this are. Essential viewing for everyone, hard as it may be.
My wife's grand-grandma is a survival of holocaust in Ukraine. We have a 3 hour video of the interview with her memories of WWII done, specifically for this movie and a letter from Spielberg. So yeah, very much of this movie is mirroring true events, which is unbelievable. It shows what humans are. And what terrible and good things we are capable of. With recent events in my country, I can only hope that good is stronger than terrible.
The Germans had a little help from certain people there, did she mention them?
@@dopetimistu mean the Nazi allies who signed the Molotov - Ribbentrop pact?
@@dopetimistYeah Ukraine is known for a large number of Nazi collaborators
Fun Fact: Hellen Hirsch, the woman who survived Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes) actually got to meet Ralph Fiennes in uniform at the set. She was extremely terrified and thought he was the real thing brought back to life. That's how good Ralph Fiennes was in this role.
I doubt she "thought he had come back to life" but it was probably a very triggering experience
@@astrojeet Heard that before about someone with a different name.
@@Andrew-jb2ib That was literally her words actually.
How is that "fun"?
Yeah, apparently Ralph Fiennes learned Goeth's mannerisms so well a few of the real survivors started to shake when he was on the set.. He looked every part of the high ranking SS Amon Goeth..
My great grandmother was a survivor, she told me how she and her sister were seperated from their parents onto different trains and the last thing her parents said to them was to take care of their brother, who was 4, but he run after their parents and they lost him in crowd, she never saw him and her parents again
I was 14 when this movie came out. I watched it in theaters with my Jewish grandmother. It was one of the most powerful and meaningful moments of my life.
Not so long after the premiere of this movie I read somewhere that Ralph Fiennes was so deeply traumatized by playing his character Amon Goeth during the selection scene (where doctors separated the "useful" prisoners from the weak or sick ones) that he collapsed and burst out in intense crying and the whole film crew has had to wait until he got himself together. So playing such a disgusting person can be really, overwhelmingly tough and he did a marvellous job - just like in any other characters he had to play so far. I also read somewhere that Amon Goeth was waaay worse and much more cruel in real life than how he was pictured in the movie. Just think about it...
I’ve heard that Ralph Fiennes is a really, really nice guy. I’ve heard of other actors and actresses who have been affected that much by playing either extremely evil people or people going through intense trauma. You have to kind of throw yourself into the character to do that well at it, but it comes at a cost.
Good reaction! The reason why Goeth shot the woman engineer was because she dared speak to him as an equal. Goeth was one of the worst in the Holocaust.
What I find particularly interesting is that Amon Göth's daughter in real life, Monika Hertwig (she changed her surname from Göth), didn’t know the true extent of what her father did until watching this film as her mother had lied to her and said her father was a good man and a war hero. Monika actually met with Helen, one of Amon's maids, as part of a documentary called Inheritance.
She didn’t knew because nothing happened.
@@ragnarok283No. Just... just no.
@@simonO712 yes. It’s literally that simple, all you have to do is to stop believing in the j3wish lies and do your own research.
@@ragnarok283 absolute cringe.
@@ragnarok283
Found the nazi.
The young engineer woman who was shot in front of everyone, was also shot in real life for the same reason, her name was Diana Reiter. The only difference is, that in reality she said "it will take more than that" after being shot, and not before, like she does in the movie. I think about her alot actually.
😲😳🥺😭
damn that's horrible
In real life Diana was shot cause a wall had fallen down and Amon blamed her for it he then ordered Hujar to kill her but sadly her death wasn’t as quick as in the film she was whipped many times by him to the point she was covered in blood and then shot more than once💔
Over 42 years ago my wife was working at a retirement/nursing home. One day she was giving a very elderly woman a bed bath. As she was washing her forearm she saw a faded numbered tattoo. The lady said, "Yes, I was a child during all of it." My wife teared up. She told me later, "How could there be anyone who could say it didn't ever happen."
A must-see movie in german schools. We don't shy away from showing and learning about what cruelties had been done in our country. We want it to be known so it can never happen again.
I remember going on a school trip to Poland to visit Auschwitz, it was horrible to see that place, but it was necessary to fully understand the horrors. Seeing whole rooms filled with human hair, rooms filled with suitcases, with shoes, with glasses - and you know that every single item once belonged to a person that had family and friends, a person who had dreams and ambitions - all of it taken away with brutal force. It broke me.
"We want it to be known so it can never happen again"
Well, that was the case before. Right know some people and especially one party have a new perspective. And in one month are elections in Germany which will underline this development.
@@martinloss4171 Which is why I am very glad I don't live there anymore.
@@evatesche Or you could stay and try helping to put a stop to this resurging radicalism. Fleeing the country is hardly helpful. There's also not a place in the world which is in better shape in terms of dealing with its dark past, so I'm not sure who you're trying to fool if not yourself.
@@Poggle_der_Geringere What in the seven hells are you talking about? "Fleeing the country"?!? "Trying to fool"?!? You don't know anything about me. I moved abroad for work nearly two decades ago, found my husband there and stayed.
Ok sorry, I definitely did overreact there. It just triggered me when you said you’re glad you don’t live there anymore now that the right wing is being radicalised.
It sounded like Germany is “beyond saving“ which is very far from the truth. Most other countries if not all have it far worse at the moment.
Three points for a great reaction. 1) Oskar and Amon were close friends (for quite some time) in real life. 2) The hair from the haircuts were used for stuffing mattresses and pillows etc as horse hair was in short supply. 3) The people at the end of the movie are the real people alongside the actors who played them in the movie!
What's crazy is that Stephen Spielberg, who directed this movie, released this and Jurassic Park BOTH in the same year. Two absolute classics in very different categories in the same year. Dude was on fire back then
Ralph Fiennes' portrayal of Goeth was so accurate that when a group of survivors of his camp saw him they had to leave because it was too real. But even then Spielberg actually watered down Goeth's cruelty for the film because it was genuinely believed that if they portrayed him 100% accurately no one would believe it was real, he was just that evil.
Just a note, the girl yelling "Goodbye Jews" is actually Polish, and not German or influenced by the Nazis. The hatred of them in most of Europe, especially eastern Europe, had absolutely nothing to do with fascism and was actually just a common traditional attitude based on historical grievances.
Thank you for watching. My family watches it every year because it's important to not forget.
I was a bit sad Pudgy rather shut off the movie if it wasn't for this channel, don't look away and ignore those past horrors. Here in the Netherlands we are confronted with this topic from a much earlier age than you!
Highly highly recommend JoJo Rabbit to be on your watch list.
Oh yes, that movie is phenomenal
Yes a love Jo Jo Rabbit, one of those movies that proves the audience know more than the critics who hated it.
Yes pls 🙏
Yea, it mixes comedy and tragedy incredibly well
Yes. Please.
I saw this in the theater when it came out. The audience was absolutely silent as the theater cleared out. Not a single word. Many of us had clearly been crying. Never experienced this in any other movie. Full theater, absolute silence, and to a person we were shocked and horrified.
"Oh my god why kill him what was the point? What did he even do?" Spartan and Pudgey do know that Jews got killed simply for the reason that they were Jewish? Based on their continuous shocked reactions it seems like they don't
The shower scene; it’s not snow, that’s human ash falling from the sky.
Interesting fact : This movie glorifies only Schindler , but in reality , his wife had a huge hand in saving the Jews . If you do some research on the subject, you'll find a lot of interesting facts 😊 , remember this is not document , this is movie . Anyway, the film fulfilled its purpose , the Nazi atrocities became known to the general public . PS : Amon Goeth was toned down for this movie , in reality he was far more violent. Which is kinda hard to believe .
Yeah, it's a bit strange how diminished of a role Schindler's wife plays in this film although she was quite instrumental. It's an insanely well made film that everyone should watch but that one fact irks me.
12 Angry Men is a great black and white movie.
Indeed amazing film to watch/react to.
So is Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai", often in the top 10-15 greatest movies list. Likewise Orson Welle's "Citizen Kane".
They should watch It’s a Wonderful Life when it comes to Christmas time
And also "Psycho" (1960).
Copied from google: Ancient Jews believed that placing the stone on a grave would keep the soul down in this world. Another interpretation is that the stones can keep evil spirits from getting into the graves.
Or - leave a stone because it's a unique way of connecting that won't be blown away and won't wilt in the sun.
With no source to reference, I had thought that such a practice evolved from placing a stone as an addition to the stones already placed on a grave. Stones which were used as a protective barrier to keep wildlife from the corpse. Later, it became a symbol that someone who cared about the deceased had visited. A calling card, if you will. Much like what you may see in the present of a coin placed on a gravestone.
I like the - each stone reprents one prayer - interpretation 😉
It has also evolved into the mentality that stone is something eternal, whereas flowers or living things die.
Aren't tomb/gravestones an evolution of this tradition?
My family and I lived in Jerusalem for a couple of years and got to visit Schindler’s grave twice.
My Dad, my brother, and I went to Krakow, Poland in May 2006 and went to a few film locations of Schindler’s List. The remains of the factory, including that long staircase, and the hill where Schindler and his riding companion witnessed the liquidation of the ghetto.
The music really breaks you; John Williams truly is a master. And Itzhak Perlman, a renowned violinist throughout the world, does that violin solo very well
Just as a side note: We watched this movie in 10th grade as part of our history classes (in Germany).
I think everyone who went to school in Germany in the 90s and 2000s saw the movie in history class
@@tomgerasch560 It was very different from state to state in Germany and even between schools in my hometown. The students of the (public) catholic high school didn't watch the movie at all.
The movie is fiction
Hope you know that
@@DarklynNightsong Oh yeah how so?
@@DarklynNightsong The movie is not fiction. Amon Göth was a real person, same as Oskar Schindler and the names on the list. Not to mention the Krakov ghetto and everything that happened at Auschwitz. You can look up the original records for yourself and visit the original sites (not just Auschwitz) if you want. We (as in Germans) were and still are very meticulious when it comes to record keeping.
Edit: Feel free to watch the films of U.S. and Sovjet/Russian soldiers when they arrived at the concentration camps, plus there are still a few veterans alive to speak to them in person.
One of the heaviest experiences of my life was meeting an old man who rented an apartment for vacations. My sister and I crossed with him a few times and talked a little more each time. One time he felt more comfortable and opened up. He ended up pulling his leave and had a number of the concentration camp tattooed on his arm. At that moment I felt like all I had learned and seen about the war was like a movie and suddenly became real. This was 24 years ago and still brings me tears when I remember.
The scene in which the Soviet soldier says that he has "liberated" them makes a very profound statement. He says, "Don't go east, that's for sure. They hate you there. I wouldn't go west either, if I were you." Pudgy asked the right question: "Then, where do you go?"
This was perfect exposition and writing. This scene shows why the Jews went back to their homeland in Israel. They had dwelt in the land of "Canaan" since the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel. They were carried into exile by the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians. Yet, they returned. They were subsequently ruled by the Greeks and the Romans. Eventually, the Romans (who were brutally oppressive) destroyed the Jewish temple and most of Jerusalem. They exiled the Jews and renamed the land "Palestine" (after Israel's Philistine enemies). By World War 2, the Jews were still living in exile from that territory.
At the end of the war (and, really, even before the war began), there was a push to return the Jews to their ancient homeland. The British controlled the land. Through the Balfour Declaration, they designated part of it as a Jewish homeland because many Europeans didn't want Jews living there. This plan was interrupted by the war and the attempt by the German National Socialists (aka "Nazis") to utterly destroy and completely annihilate the Jewish race.
By the end of the war, the Allied powers supported this effort to take part of that British territory of which the Romans renamed "Palestine" -- the ancient homeland of Israel -- and make part of it a Jewish country. So, the question: "Then, where do you go?" is followed by the understanding of why Israel exists as a nation today. Less than three years after the war, Israel was formally founded as a revived nation.
I'm really sorry that this is a movie we have to watch, but we *must* watch it, and we *must* remember. So that it may never happen again.
@@jordanwright1061 You think a movie is going to stop humans from being horrendous creatures capable of anything? Because knowing humans it will happen again... No matter how many movies you make.
Well said
Except that it's happened dozens of times since then. It's happening now.
We've learned nothing.
@@zammmerjammer yup, if there is one thing about humans, it is that they don't learn from history. And the reason for this is that all the people who are in power, whether elected or by military coup or other means, are the worst of humanity. And as long as war is profitable and as long as people want power and money, nothing will ever change. I am ashamed to be a part of the human race. I feel like an alien from another universe, because I cannot fathom the how and the why of it.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Hey Spartan and Pudgey, I think you guys eventually got the symbolism of the girl in the red coat. -------- She was meant to represents a similar girl Schindler saw when the Jewish ghettos were being raided and everyone murdered. -------- He saw this little girl walking about in the swell of people and no one took notice of her. --------- No one noticed her, Not the Jewish people running for their lives nor the Germans chasing them. ------- To him, this little girl symbolized the apathy that had descended over the German society. Truly heart wrenching and sad.
I will never forget a great piece of photoshopped artwork about fictional children as adults, it was the Berlin Wall coming down and a young woman standing on top with arms raised in victory. The whole picture was black and white, apart from her red coat.
at 1:01:37 ... the soldier on the horse was a Russian soldier...the Soviet Army liberated some of the largest concentration camps, such as Auschwitz. The Soviet troops freed thousands of prisoners who had been left behind by the retreating Nazis.
The beginning of one of the most eduring bromances in Hollywood history. Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson remain like brothers. Fiennes is godfather to one of Liam's sons and wrote an obit for Liam's late wife Natasha Richardson.
I didn’t know Voldemort/Goeth’s actor is brothers with Commander Waterford’s actor. Those brothers make excellent villains on screen
I love how she says "I KNAAWWRR", what a cute accent!
Legendary actors in this film, including a young Liam Neeson, a young Ralph Fiennes (Pudgy was right about Voldemort) but also the quiet Jewish guy who is none other than Ben Kingsley. One of the best films ever made. Too heavy on the conscience.
Oscar Shindler died in poverty. RIP.
Of course they recognised Liam Neeson.
The moment he first appears on screen, 5:24 , they made a reference to his role in "Taken".
@@Murdo2112 Ah weird thanks, somehow missed that moment.
I hope that someday they'll watch Ben Kingsley's performance in GANDHI (with or without filming their reaction).
The film everyone should see once, but no one wants to see twice.
I saw it twice at the theater in the same week. :)
@irrelevantandbeyond Both prescriptive and suppositious, cool.
Interesting fact: A woman who survived Auschwitz was on set and met Ralp Fiennes (and yes, he did play Voldemort) in full costume and started trembling when she saw him because of the likeness to Goeth. Jews are not allowed to drink strong Alcohol which is why Stern did not want to drink with him.
My grandfather was part of the Third Army under General Patton when Buchenwald concentration camp was liberated. He never talked about what he saw there to anyone in the family except to say,”I didn’t know people could do that to other people.”
My great Uncle was the same, he said nobody would believe what they saw when liberating Buchenwald. He and another soldier took down the Nazi flag, that had been new a week before. He brought that home, 2 gas chamber spigets, and some bone. My sister took the flag in 1968 to show and tell, she was 14, studying the war. The Nazi party in America contacted my dad approximately 3 months later and wanted the flag as it actually flown in Germany at a camp. My dad just lied and said you have the wrong people. 1991 my dad donated all of it the the Simon Weisenthal holocaust museum in Beverly Hill, CA. They gave the bone a proper Jewish burial. The flag hangs in that museum, the ONLY place for a Nazi flag to hang. My uncle didn’t speak much of some of the atrocities he witnessed, but it is something he never forgot.
Here in Israel, we have Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial. Part of that is dedicated to the children. You walked through the exhibit, and there’s one flame, and it’s surrounded by mirrors. So that flame is reflected thousands of times. Disappearing into the mirrors. And it’s meant to symbolize that one life taken affected future generations forever. Millions of people gone because you killed this child. When you were walking through the exhibit as well, there’s a narration that just says the names of the victims, and their ages. Hearing these names, with something like six years old or three years old next to them is just both heartbreaking and disgusting.
Omg you guys! I'm so happy you're here!! ❤ And that you watched this masterpiece!
The significance of the rocks is what we put on a grave. We don’t put flowers on graves. They are temporary and they die. But a rock is forever. So if you’re ever here in Israel, for instance, on all the graves you will see stones of people that have visited them. They’ll put a stone on the headstone.
44:26 I feel you, Pudgey. Schindler's List is not only one of the greatest films ever made, but also one of the most important. The world must *never* forget the atrocities that were committed, not in the dark ages, but *in the middle of the 20th century.* That said, as brilliant and important as this film is, it is SO emotionally draining that I have only ever been able to watch it twice. Even reactions to it, I have to skim through because it simply takes too much of a toll on me. So again, I completely understand your sentiment.
and we must also not forget that the state of Israel is currently doing the same thing to Palestine
@@nicknickson3650 That's nowhere near the same thing. Get real. Your reply is irrelevant to the topic at hand. This is about the WW II holocaust, not the current war between Israel and Palestine.
@@nicknickson3650That's propaganda hatespeech!
History Is Written by the Victors. If you do not understand this you are not very intelligent.
The little girl in red represents hope. There’s no color without light, the opposite of darkness. Her death symbolizes the loss of hope.
Not really. Spielberg explained she was supposed to represent the genocide happening in Europe, as evident as a red girl in a black and white film, and nobody did anything
Hope didn't die.
"If You Will it, it is No Dream" - Theodor Herzl
I think she is just meant to be someone to stand out among all of the chaos. Terrible things happened and millions of people died, it is extremely hard to conceptualize millions of people dying, but focusing on just one person allows you to understand. Focusing on a young innocent girl where the tragedy of it is even worse, truly exemplifies that tragedy. It is still impossible to conceptualize millions of innocent people dying, but understanding one life truly puts into perspective how unfathomable it is.
@@Michaelonyoutub That’s a good to look at it. Empathy for one obviously innocent life. Personally, I felt most touched when I saw the kids waving from the trucks taking them away from their mothers.
@@Michaelonyoutub Similar to what Itzhak Stern said to Schiendler, "Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire."
Life is Beautiful, is my favorite WW2 movie. It has everything
Totally agree!!
@@KSDVLmom literally my favorite movie of all time!!!
Good call. I saw that movie in a high school class, forgot, which one… But it balances terror with humor very well.
One of my absolute favs…so good!
Yep there’s another one I will never watch again because it’s so traumatic! Great film tho.
As others have said, the ending shows the real life people alongside the actors who played them in the movie. Quite the surreal realization once you understand what you're seeing.
My Great Grandfather died in Auschwitz June 12, 1944. This film is very hard to watch but so important to be made.
It's such a shame that the siege of Germany by the allies caused a lot of people to die from starvation.
Both my parents survived the holocaust. However most of their grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews didn't.
9:48 “How on Earth could it possibly be worse??”
Lesson learned: Never ask that question. Karma might be listening!
🤣
As horrific as the portrayals are, the realities of the Holocaust were so much worse. A few years ago I undertook a study of the Holocaust and read more than a dozen books by survivors. Even if TH-cam wouldn’t take down my comments, I don’t think I could bring myself to type the words to describe some of the events. And I’m a rather stoic person.
I think the choice of using B&W was a masterstroke. Color would have gotten in the way of the core elements and emotions of the story. Another great and highly recommended movie along these lines is The Pianist (2002) directed by Roman Polanski. That great film is another true story about a concert pianist in Poland, and his experiences. Polanski experienced the Holocaust as an adolescent, and elements of his own story find their way into the film. Very highly recommended.
You can’t, it has to come from the writers of these stories to be spoken. We can read, listen, and watch, but to even think of sharing someone’s experience with the holocaust with voice is extremely disrespectful…
Black & white can sometimes match the tone or mood of the film better than color - color might lessen the tension, or decrease the sense of doom or distract the audience from the deeper themes or emotions. Color doesn’t always add useful information (it might not matter what color the costumes are, or the background.) High contrast black & white, with its deep shadows and intense key lighting is a beautiful art form on its own; just like other art forms, not all subject matter in films is required to be done in only one way. Film Noir is mostly done in black & white which increases the atmosphere of mystery, criminality, fear, suspense or heightens the themes which the film is exploring. A film that is famous for its stark black & white and creative varieties of gray is the British film: The Third Man.
Also, everyone is used to seeing the real events of the time in black and white newsreel footage only, so using it here is a clear statement by the filmmakers: "This isn't just a Hollywood story - this really happened."
Steven Spielberg said the girl in the red coat was to catch those watching this film off guard. It is a reminder of the individuality of those who suffered under the Nazi regime. Without the coloured coat this little girl would have blended in with those around her and just be counted as another number. The usage of red was to convey to the audience that this girl like all those who lost their lives had hopes, dreams and aspirations that unfortunately were not realised.
There was an actual 'girl in red' in the Krakow ghetto, around three years old.
She stood out so much in her red coat among all the drab greys and blacks of everyone else, she was known as 'little strawberry'.
She survived the war.
Glad you watched this. It’s important history. I’m a history & military history buff. Two of my favorite eras are the Roman Empire & WW2 especially as a US Army veteran. The German army of WW2 was one of the greatest armies ever & their tactics, weapons & technology had a huge influence on modern weapons & warfare. They receive much more praise however the atrocities of the Holocaust casts a terrible shadow over the whole of Germany.
Anyway while viewing this you cannot view these events with a normal lens or with modern values. “Presentism” is viewing the past through the lens of modern morality & values. Also you cannot look at the events in this film or judge the people under a normal lens so to speak. That is you cannot judge motivations but rather just look at the consequences & results if you get me. For example Spartan was saying that Schinlder used these workers because they were cheap which is exploitation. This is true but that value judgement doesn’t matter. The context matters because this time period was so extraordinary. Israel & the Jews hold Schinlder as “Righteous Among Nations.” It doesn’t matter that he was exploiting cheap labor or profiting off the war. Later his motivations changed but that is besides the point. What matters is that he was saving lives. At around @19:00 Pudgey was taken aback that Stern was saved from the train but that the other people on the train “didn’t matter” & Spartan was miffed Schindler said “Where would I be” in regard to Stern almost being sent away on the train. You cannot view it with regular eyes or value. I wish I could explicate this better. Of course it’s an impossible situation. They knew the other people were likely being sent to die but you cannot look at it with normal morality. Think of it as choosing the best course of action when every choice was awful. It’s about navigating a situation where nothing was certain except that one simple mistake meant certain death. It’s about saving as many possible or rather not letting as many people die as you can.
Pudgey made the observation that choosing who worked & who didn’t must have been hard for the council. It was literally a life or death choice. It was a terrible decision but had to be done. Of course families, friends & connected people got preferential treatment. That’s how it is. Wasnit right? No But again extraordinary times calls for extraordinary measures. None of this was fair but it is easy to judge from afar with hindsight. Thousands were saved instead of none. That is what matters. There were Jewish helpers called Sonderkommando like the Jewish ghetto & camp police. Many would consider them sellouts but they had to do terrible things to survive & they were placed in auspicious positions which saved themselves (not always) & allowed them to get extra food or smuggle in things & smuggle out things like messages. The Jewish helpers or Sonderkommando even had to participate in deaths & cleaning up the dead bodies. Again you cam judge them for all the actions under simple morality or strict ethics like Kant’s categorical imperative which basically says you must always do the right thing. They had to do terrible things but you have to look at it under more of a utilitarian view. They had to pick the devil they knew versus the devil they didn’t or choose the lesser of two evils. In this way many survived. Because of this there are thousands of relatives now who survived due to the efforts of Schindler & others.
Now it’s a very complex situation & I could go further in depth but it’s outside of the scope of a comment. Besides most people don’t want to read a long comment. I hope that I was able to explain things well enough. It’s difficult to articulate. Explaining how judging the actions, events & people under “normal” rules or morality, & judging their motivation at face value is a natural thing to do but again, you have to remember the context & situation - you cannot judge these things in a regular way as you have to understand the terrible circumstances. The phrase “Desperate times calls for desperate measures” is the best way to think of the people & their actions. You can’t judge these people & their actions under simple right or wrong terms but like I said it must be done under utilitarian terms. Did it help in any way or help the greater good of the Jews or not? Sometimes they had to make terrible or impossible decisions but had to use the “lesser of two evils” calculus. As I said it wasn’t always right but it was about survival & many survived when they were basically all doomed.
On a side note: this is an extremely serious & dour movie that is also very macabre however despite this Spielberg smartly put in some moments of levity like the Germans calling for Stern at the train after the transfer threat by Oskar or the young boy with Commandant Goeth & the chicken. Moments of levity or any minor comedic scenes might seem out of place or inappropriate but they work. First the topic is so heavy & depressing the levity helps the audience breathe. Also in life or death situations finding something to laugh or smile about can literally be life saving. It doesn’t trivialize the atrocities or death but rather brings it all into sharper relief. I am a terrible teacher & am poor at articulating concepts or ideas in a cogent & detailed manner so I hope that I was able to explain things well enough.
About the rocks, if I remember (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) Jewish people leave them on graves, as we leave flowers. Jews just don't want a symbol of their memory being something of so short living time, so they choose stone, which remains for centuries. Also, always great to see somebody learning little bit of this part of the history❤
I'm Jewish, and my grandparents told me that in the countries they fled from and were chased out of, putting small rocks on graves was the only way to mark that patch of ground as a burial place of a Jewish person, since the Jewish people weren't allowed to formally mark their graves. This happened in Europe and in the Middle East.
@@YuvalOfir-yg9ml thank you, I didn't think about that. Reading other comments on this topic and as I talked to few Jewish people here in Poland I think that there are as many specific reasons as many people. Best wishes for you and your family
@@YuvalOfir-yg9ml I'm sorry to contradict you. I'm sure this is a good reason. But also in other countries, like mine, we put a rock or earth on the graves. It is simply a symbol that indicates that everyone buries the dead together.
They took the hair to make blankets with.
Young people are starting to forget the Holocaust , so we may be doomed to repeat the past .
The amount of people using this comment section to make what they think is some completely false and 'profound' statement about Gaza is fucking disgusting.
As soon as I saw the title of what they were watching, I thought of a quote from ' The Last Samurai'... "They're not ready..."
Kudos for watching this masterpiece. There's certainly a deep level of pain that we express watching prototypical WWII films portraying heroism and sacrifice. This piece of art goes much further both viscerally and psychologically. There is no heroism or glory in any of it. It's brutality at an industrial level to the point of disbelief. For these people, survival is the only war they knew. I feel numb just writing this 😢.
46:13 it is not quite clear to everyone, but this scene is exhuming all the mass graves and burning the evidence of the deathtoll. This was around the time that the tide of the war was turning
I appreciate Spartan seeing what Oskar was at first and technically throughout for pointing out while he did save some lives but he was a war profiteer. Eventually I'm sure he grew to understand and appreciate the work he was doing. And Pudgy right that is Voldemort Ralph Fiennes
My son played in a TV series an SS lieutenant who was hunting jews in Warsaw during the war. After the first day of shooting he came home almost depressed because of his character. He said to me: "Dad, these guys were so cruel! During the day I am hunting for Jews and at night we go partying like nothing happend!". He was very impressed and very sad about it.
My father joined the Canadian Air Force about 7-8 years after WWII. At one time he was reviewing captured nazi films of some death camps. From what he said he saw, literally made him vomit. He told me it made him sick for days. None of us could even begin to imagine the horror of those who had to live through it.
You two are lovely human beings. Take care of yourselves.
Dramatized? Survivors who saw the movie said it was even worse.
My father (God rest his soul) was a 19 year old American soldier in 1944/45 who saw some of this during his war time experiences in Germany. The only reason I know this is because of the research I did on his unit's service. He never once spoke of it to anyone in our familly...not even my mother.
Placing rocks on a grave in the Jewish tradition is a very old tradition. There are differing explanations, but stones outlast flowers is one belief and it can represent efforts at permanence.
The girl in red was not in red for fun and also not to show her as a corpse at the end. The girl in red was there because she was supposed to be the turning point for Schindler.
Göth was portrayed in the movie as more human than he was. Or rather, not as monstrous as it was, because it would have made the movie unbelievable. At least that was the fear.
As an example, Göth fed newborns alive to his dogs while the parents had to watch. Unfortunately, this is not an exaggeration.
On the other hand, it was not shown or mentioned that Jews betrayed each other and were thus directly responsible for various killings. To gain an advantage from the guards. At least that's what they believed. That usually didn't help, others saved their own lives by betraying others again and again.
In the end, the actors walked side by side next to the people they played. A halfway clever person comes up with it himself.
"It seems like it actually happened."
Wtf. Of course, that's history. From the beginning there was writing with place and date and what happened there at the time and the two only realize towards the end that this is a true story, or rather history. Omg
Dude, there's no need to be so ungracious.
This film is one of the few that I feel genuine anguish when watching. It's so hard to watch the sheer cruelty and injustice done by the Nazis, knowing that this actually happened.
And we thought this kind of violence would never be repeated again, no matter what. Now look at today
The crazy part is how willingly and eager some of us seem to be about repeating horror, despite possessing the knowledge. Like it's edgy and provocative.
It hasn’t been repeated today. Rwanda genocide and the Darfur genocide happened in the 90s and 00s.
Its because this violence was directed at specific group people, and those who wish to instigate this violence again know they are part of the group that will be safe from subjugation and execution. The Nazi propaganda has been allowed to circulate, under the guise of free speech, which has allowed people to either be manipulated into hate with lies, or allowed them to fuel their already existing hate with lies.
@@IanM92 Sorry, an invasion of Israel in which hundreds of people were murdered in the most brutal possible way, not as collateral damage, but on purpose, followed by demonstrations all over the west against Israel for retaliating, with demonstraters chanting that Israel must be destroyed? It seems like a movement toward another holocaust.
Truly disturbing how quickly it went from "never again" to "our turn now". Someday movies will be made about the atrocities done to the Palestinians and people will say, how could the world let it happen again?
Top 3 Liam Neeson roles without a freaking doubt. He was phenomenal in this! 💜
A fantastic actor who I’ve lost so much respect for considering the slop he’s put out the last 15 years since Taken.
@@Knightowl1980 His agent doesn't seem to have a very particular set of skills, skills he should have acquired over a very long career.
@@Knightowl1980 When I see that sort of thing, I wonder if the actor is keeping to himself some serious financial problems that require him to take any paying work he can get.
I believe Nick Cage has been known for this, and I recently learned John Malkovich lost all his money to Bernie Madoff and had to start taking any and every role he could get to try to recover.
Three more bits of note: At the burning scene when Goeth tells Schindler they have to dig up "every rag and burn it" The word '"rag" was used as a slur to refer to Jews. (I am unsure of dates, but I'm assuming it was something to do with Jews wearing nothing but rags) In the last days of the 3rd Reich, it was adopted by Jews themselves to describe the dead, as "corpse" "body" and other such labels were a reminder that the dead person in question was, in fact, a person. And the person had been murdered. Acknowledgement of that made the Nazis uncomfortable. While I am totally onboard with making Nazis uncomfortable, the simple fact remained that by that point in time, an uncomfortable Nazi with an already short fuse had a very, very, very, very, very twitchy trigger finger and could transition from "making your life a living hell" to "now you're dead" in less than half a second. I'm not condoning anything, I'm just explaining.
Near the end, as Schindler is leaving the factory, he makes reference to cigarettes "that we organized". This is also a Jewish euphemism. As it said in the beginning, it was illegal to buy or trade goods on the black market. Goods were no longer "acquired" or "bought", they were "organized"
Finally, the text states that there are over 6000 descendants of the Schindlerjuden. That was in 1993. The number, as of March last year, is now double that.
There is no possible way to prepare yourself for a film like this. But we need films like this. We need to acknowledge the darkest parts of human history, so that we know the depths of what humanity is capable of, and then make the conscious, moral decision to never do the same. You're not the only ones who can't understand. Who could? This film will make you look at yourself in a whole new light, and leave you with deeply unsettling questions. It's depressing, but eventually you will learn that you will never understand this, and your questions will never be answered. Eventually I had to travel to one of those camps and see for myself and let me tell you....this movie may bludgeon you over the head with a 100lb weight, but it is nothing compared to the invisible weight in those places. They press down on you with an almost physical aspect. Walking by the piles of shoes and glasses so tall they reach the ceilings and fill entire rooms is a punch to the gut, and even if you are there with 500 or so other ....I hesitate to call it tourists...visitors, it is silent and still. No one talks. All you want to do is flee the oppressive, heavy nature of the very air you're struggling to breathe. But you still won't understand. You will leave with no answers.
Spartan and Pudgey, one of the most gut-wrenching parts of the movie is when the little boy has to jump in the latrine to hide from the Germans. ------- I just picture myself hiding from a monster in a filthiest place I could ever imagine and times that by 10. -------- Only to be told by other kids to get out, this is there place to hide. ------- At that moment, I always become that little boy cold and afraid, hiding from the monsters.
you accidentally posted the same comment twice.
51:24 clerical errors were common during this time. Thankfully, this one was prevented.
Corrie ten Boom gained her freedom due to a clerical error.
I recommend "the Hiding Place" movie based on her book of this time.
As a Dutch person living in a country that was taken over by and heavily struck by the Nazi's, I learned A LOT about WO2 in school. It's such an important part of the history of my country. The scene of the jew neighbourhood being raided and all the people being shot and taken, these razzia's happened all over the Netherlands/Europe. Every year on May 4th we have a national memorial ceremony in Amsterdam, that is broadcasted live on tv, were the entire country holds 3 minutes of silence to honor all that have fallen victim in WO2. On May 5th we celebrate our liberation as a country.
It didn´t happen like this in Holland. Everything in Holland went more smoothly and not that violent. Even the transitcamp Westerbork was much more "peacefull", the Germans were able to fool the Jewish population. In Poland the Germans didn't even try to hide their true intensions.
The children were separated and killed
"Robin Williams, Spielberg said, was keenly aware of the toll Schindler’s was about to take on his friend-so he made it a habit to regularly call Spielberg and cheer him up during the brutal shoot in Poland"
Appreciate Spartan picking up on Schindlers not so stellar motives at the beginning. He’s a famous and decisive historical figure for a reason. Ultimately a hero, but started out as cold, calculating, and immoral as the worst of them.
youre right spartan he absolutely was capitalizing off of their circumstances at the beginning.
John Williams’ score is impactful. 💜💜💜
One of the greatest movies ever made. You actually should watch it at least once more. You learn and understand it even better. Well, I grew up with this movie. Being born and raised in Germany what was told in school wasnt nearly enough. This movie sparked something in me and made me watch all the documentaries that were there. So glad you watched it. We should never forget the past.
Denmark were the exception, where non of this happened. It's difficult to explain exactly why, but no one in Denmark wore the yellow star or any other identification mark during the war, so that was also highly unusual.
The Germans did capture 464 Jews who did not manage to escape, though mainly the elderly, but even here the Danish government managed to pressure the Germans to not deport any of them to the death camps and also to allow the Danish red cross to provide food parcels and monitor their health. Still, a total of 51 of the captives got sick and died of old age or disease at the camp.
The thing that causes confusion the most, It is for a people to go through a disaster like this and then do the same heinous acts against other people , not all of them , only the (Z)
They probably assume/believe that events like this are the very justification for whatever they choose to do to anyone who isn't part of their group. "They would do worse to us, given the chance."
This is, honestly, one of those movies I feel everyone should watch at least once. But I will never have the strength to watch the whole movie again. Spielberg did an incredible job on this movie, and it was released the same year as Jurassic Park. Everything from the acting to the filming is incredible and painful.
Oscar had to tread both sides carefully. Otherwise, he would be in the Jews position, and none of them would have survived
The actors are with their real life counterparts at the end, placing the stones for remembrance/honor of Oskar Schindler
1:01:15 i think pudgey mistook Soviet soldiers for Nazis. These are russians saying "you are saved, go!".