Schindler

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I just saw this movie on cable. Was he really the kind, humanitarian portrayed or was the story fixed about a bit to make a good movie?

And also, I missed the end and can't find any sites on him ( maybe I spell his name wrong ) does anyone know what happened to him, if he was prosecuted afte rthe war by the allies or what not?

 

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http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/schindler.html

He was buried in Israel in 1974, and he and his wife have a tree in the Avenue Of The Righteous.

 

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Originally posted by CountDeMoney
He was buried in Israel in 1974, and he and his wife have a tree in the Avenue Of The Righteous.

Hmmm...
Anyone know how many non-Jews have recieved this honor? Just curious.

 

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Originally posted by Neil
Hmmm...
Anyone know how many non-Jews have recieved this honor? Just curious.

He was buried at the Catholic cemetery at Mount Zion, I think, I don't really remember.

Everyone honored in The Avenue Of The Righteous are non-Jews.
That's who it's for, non-Jews who assisted Jews during the Holocaust. They stopped planting trees there years ago, but there's close to 20,000 people honored there.

 

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Originally posted by CountDeMoney
Everyone honored in The Avenue Of The Righteous are non-Jews.
That's who it's for, non-Jews who assisted Jews during the Holocaust. They stopped planting trees there years ago, but there's close to 20,000 people honored there.

Thanks, CdM. That's an interesting bit of trivia I must say. I wasn't aware that so many people had been honored by the Israelis. Pretty impressive, I must say.

 

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They have entire towns and communities honored, as well, not just individuals.
In fact The Danish Underground is honored as a single entity, as the Danes wished to have its members honored collectively.

 

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So then I take it that the post-war Jewish community held him in high regard. Wonderful story.

 

[stnylan]

Originally posted by Jaron
So then I take it that the post-war Jewish community held him in high regard. Wonderful story.

The book "Schindler's Ark" upon which the film was based has a final chapter basically following up on Oskar's life post-WW2. Apparently those he saved more or less ended up supporting him towards the end of his life. The Book also provides other material from his life pre-WW2 that is quite interesting. Indeed, just read the book

 

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Originally posted by Neil
Thanks, CdM. That's an interesting bit of trivia I must say. I wasn't aware that so many people had been honored by the Israelis. Pretty impressive, I must say.

Contrary to popular belief the most numerous people honoured are Poles.

 

[Malthus]

Originally posted by stnylan
The book "Schindler's Ark" upon which the film was based has a final chapter basically following up on Oskar's life post-WW2. Apparently those he saved more or less ended up supporting him towards the end of his life. The Book also provides other material from his life pre-WW2 that is quite interesting. Indeed, just read the book

I read this years ago - apparently, Schindler was no plaster saint: he was a spendthrift and a womanizer - but who cares? Towards the end of his life, he was penniless, and lived a nomadic existence scrounging off of the people whose lives he had saved. Apparently, they were quite happy to support him - I must admit, if someone saved my life like he did, they would be welcome to scrounge off me forever!

 

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Originally posted by Malthus
I read this years ago - apparently, Schindler was no plaster saint: he was a spendthrift and a womanizer - but who cares? Towards the end of his life, he was penniless, and lived a nomadic existence scrounging off of the people whose lives he had saved. Apparently, they were quite happy to support him - I must admit, if someone saved my life like he did, they would be welcome to scrounge off me forever!

So he did have his bad side but what I am wondering is - did he try to save the lives of jews in ww2 because he cared about them or more simply for humanitarian reasons, or was there a less admirable reason?

 

[Malthus]

Originally posted by Jaron
So he did have his bad side but what I am wondering is - did he try to save the lives of jews in ww2 because he cared about them or more simply for humanitarian reasons, or was there a less admirable reason?

Well, I don't think he saved them so he would have a group to scrounge off of in his pennyless years!

 

[stnylan]

Originally posted by Jaron
So he did have his bad side but what I am wondering is - did he try to save the lives of jews in ww2 because he cared about them or more simply for humanitarian reasons, or was there a less admirable reason?

I think this is a question that even many of those selfsame Jews would like to know the answer to. At the beginning of Chapter 31 there is the following passage

'At some point in any discussion about Schindler, the surviving friends of the Herr Direktor will blink and shake their heads and begin the almost mathematical business of finding the sum of his motives. For one of the most common sentiments of the Schindler Jews is "I don't know why he did it." It can be said for a start that Oskar was a gambler, was a sentamentalist who loved transparency, the simplicity of doing good; that Oskar was by temperament an anarchist who loved to ridicule the system, and that beneath the hearty sensuality lay a capacity to be outraged by human savagery, to react to it and not be overwhelmed. But none of this, jotted down, explains the doggedness with which, in the autumn of 1944, he prepared a final haven for the graduates of Emalia.'

NB: Emalia was the name given to his enamal factory in Krakow.

I think this will be one of those mysteries no one will ever be able to answer. The man is a real tangle. As another survivor said - though I paraphrase - he was just Oskar.

 

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I thought to some extent the movie did show that Oskar had another side to him, that he wasn't an all out saint.

At the beginning of the movie he seems rather indifferent to the jews, he's only there to make money. He has his problems womanizing, living the "high life." He seems very greedy but then begins to change throughout the movie.

Whether or not this is how it actually happened I have no idea.

 

[stnylan]

Originally posted by Bauer
I thought to some extent the movie did show that Oskar had another side to him, that he wasn't an all out saint.

At the beginning of the movie he seems rather indifferent to the jews, he's only there to make money. He has his problems womanizing, living the "high life." He seems very greedy but then begins to change throughout the movie.

Whether or not this is how it actually happened I have no idea.

Indeed it did but the impression was different I feel. Leastways I feel different after reading the book and watching the film. Mostly I guess because as good as the film is there is so much detail that it misses.

Difficult to say though about how it started. In the book it expresses the view, with some examples, that shows Oskar had become seriously disillusioned with Nationalist Socialism by the beginning of the war. I think though there is no doubt that he was wanting to make money, but I get the impression he was always concerned about the plight of the Jews, and that over time he became more and more involved in trying to do something about it.

I hope that made sense.