How Reliable is Schindler's List As A Representation of the Holocaust?

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History Coursework        Caoimhe McWilliams        Question 3

How reliable is Schindler’s List as a representation of the Holocaust/Final Solution?

Schindler’s List is a blockbuster movie based on Thomas Keneally’s book, ‘Schindler’s Ark’, which is based on 50 eye witness accounts of the Holocaust.  The movie is based around the life of Oskar Schindler, a rich German business man (who is by no means a flawless hero) who risks everything in a bid to save as many lives as possible nearing the end of the Holocaust.  Steven Spielberg, a well known Hollywood director, made this movie and tried to keep it as close to the book as possible.  He liked the idea of this book as Keneally kept it as close to fact as possible so as he wouldn’t debase the original event, but it drew people in emotionally because it was told from an eye witness point of view.  Spielberg made this movie to inform people about the Holocaust, but also to make money, so he threw in a mix of fact and fiction, which is why we need to explore this further.

We can tell from the film what is fact reasonably easily because of our thorough knowledge of the Holocaust already, and also our source pack is useful here.  We are shown how the Jews are treated in great detail in this movie, beginning with them being herded into ghettoes to live, and the conditions in the ghettoes are shown to be appalling.  Many people died from ‘natural reduction’ – starvation, illness and general suffering from the sub human conditions.  We know that this is true from our own knowledge.

Next, the Jews are taken from the ghettoes to work camps and death camps.  In the movie, we see how badly they are treated and how they are transported to the even worse conditions awaiting them.  They were driven into these cattle carts and squeezed in to the maximum capacity.  They were deprived of water and of course air, which we see in the movie when they call out from their ‘compartment’ and Schindler sprays them with the hose to deliver them some relief, even though it was under the guise of taunting them.  This detail of their traveling conditions is backed up by the picture in source 12 of the cattle carts they were taken in, and Borowski’s writing in source 13.  

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Upon arrival, the humiliation began immediately.  Everyone was ordered to strip and to run around naked.  After that, the healthy were separated from those who could not work, which includes separating a mother from her child.  This is backed up by a number of our sources, including Samuel Willenberg’s writing in source 11 and Yehuda Bakon in source 16.  After that, the women had their hair shaved off to stuff mattresses, and this is depicted in the film – one of the women later on in the film claimed that she had heard a rumor that this was the ...

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