In my town growing up there were many adults with numbers tattooed on the inside of their arms. But still I somehow never grasped the meaning and the impact of the Holocaust until fifth grade, when one morning a student came in with the information that a guy named Hitler had tried to wipe out all the Jews in Europe.
I don't remember anything I may have learned about World War II from my teachers or my textbooks. I will always remember being told before class one day that a man used his army to kill families like mine. People like the ones I saw around town, who were only little children when it happened. The man who sat quietly, never speaking, at our local swim club. Whose brother, the owner of the club, I later learned, had rescued him from under a pile of bodies where he had been thrown and left for dead.
That's why I've always believed that the way to make history meaningful is to present it as a story about people. And especially to make it graphic and real in images and movies. Which is why Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning film Schindler's List was so powerful an experience for so many people.
Digitally restored for its 20th anniversary, Schindler's List is the story of Oscar Schindler, a real-life businessman who arrived in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II to get a fresh start. With the help of some Jewish investors, he opens a sheet metal factory and begins making goods for the German army. The Jews he hires as workers are cheaper than Polish labor, but they are also grateful to have a job as their ability to make a living is taken away bit by bit. Gradually, Schindler's goal changes from maximizing profit to saving lives. When his Jewish workforce is shipped off to concentration camps, his "list" of necessary workers keeps more than a thousand men, women, and children out of the gas chamber.
I recently watched the re-mastered Blu-ray of Schindler's List with my teenage son. He was aware of Hitler at a much younger age than I was, thanks to today's popular culture. And we've watched documentaries about World War II, featuring archival footage of the Jewish ghettos and the concentration camps. He's also a big fan of Inglorious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino's alternate reality version of World War II in which the plots to assassinate Hitler are successful.
But watching Schindler's List together, it occurred to me that this might have been my son's first real glimpse into what the Holocaust mean to the families who were Hitler's victims. Something that perhaps I should have shared earlier.
Of course, Schindler's List is not just a history lesson. This is the film that introduced us to Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes. Watching it again, Spielberg makes Neeson's Schindler seem like the tallest man in the world. In almost every scene, he bends down to talk to another character. No wonder his Qui-Gon Jinn was so powerful. And Fiennes – as a personification of evil, Voldemort pales beside the Nazi commander Amon Goeth, who likes to pull out his rifle and pick off random prisoners from the balcony of his villa before breakfast.
Spielberg manages a delicate balancing act, keeping the story engaging and watchable while not flinching from the blood and the horror. I have to say I appreciated the movie much more on this viewing than I did seeing it in the theater 20 years ago. I think my son will get more out of it each time he watches it as well.
The 20th Anniversary Limited Edition combo pack of Schindler's List comes with Blu-ray, DVD, digital, and UltraViolet copies of the film, restored by Spielberg in high definition. Special Features include Voices from the List, a documentary featuring actual Schindler List survivors, and the USC Shoah Foundation Story profiling the director's organization which works to preserve Holocaust testimonies.
