Swindler's List - Spielberg

Copyright Rabbi Eli Hecht
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The film year ended with a new movie directed by Steven Spielberg called, Schindler's List. The footage was shot almost completely in black and white, giving it a feeling of a documentary.  The film's story tells about Oskar Schindler, a failed businessman, who decided to travel to Krakow, Poland in 1939. His move to Krakow was simply to strike it rich at the expense of others. Schindler buys a Jewish factory that produces items for the war effort. He hires Jewish laborers at the cheapest wages possible and he pays them in government rations. It doesn't cost Schindler anything and it keeps their meager bodies alive. Besides taking advantage of the workers, Schindler lives a thrilling life traveling to the places of excitement where his Nazi friends enjoy the good life.  All this is at the expense of the unfortunate Polish Jewry. Since Schindler is a supercilious person, he keeps a wife in Germany and a German mistress in a Krakow apartment. He also finds time to have an affair with a Polish secretary and is emotionally involved with some of the Jewish women in his factory. Schindler is presented as a real opportunist.

As the movie evolves, Schindler has made quite a fortune and decides to help the Jews for one of two reasons:  that man's life also has a soul and he will have to give an accounting to G‑d after death or that he can be a greater businessman and play G‑d by saving his working victims. We really never know. After being prodded by his clever Jewish bookkeeper, he saves his Jews just in time.

In the name of filming, Schindler is now being portrayed as a hero for his successful attempt to save his workers. The movie's message is that no matter how evil man is, he can change. But, I don't think so. 

For the life of me I can't understand what possessed Spielberg to direct this film.  My anger about this picture is directed at the glorification of the modern day Robin Hood at the expense of my victimized brothers and sisters. He did not win the Best Director award from the New York or Los Angeles film critics in their year-end voting.  Now let me qualify my anger. 

As I was growing up in the 1950s, almost all of my classmates were children of the famous last Auschwitz deportees from Hungary.  Many teachers carried with them tattoo numbers, physical reminders of inhuman cruelties. I can remember visiting a family with my grandmother, Omah, and being told by the woman, "How lucky you are, yingela, sonny-boy, that you have a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, uncles, aunts and even grandparents. The only thing I have left from Germany is this!" She shoved her hand with the blue numbers in front of me. 

Other times my Jewish teacher, a survivor of the camps, would start to cry thinking of the suffering he and his family had experienced. Many of the school children were from second marriages. Either their father's or mother's first spouse had been killed and the survivor had remarried. It wasn't uncommon for children to have half brothers and sisters who were 10 or 15 years older than them.

As I grew older, I started to realize that being a fifth generation American living in Williamsburg, New York, with survivors of concentration or DP camps, was like living in a different world, the Twilight Zone. The butcher had a tattoo number; as did the baker and teacher. Almost everyone had a number. I thought that when you come from Europe you received a number on your hand together with your passport.

There wasn't a month that went by when we didn't run into either a student or a parent who was slightly mixed up, "an inheritance from Hitler," as explained to me by my parents. "Look the other way; don't criticize them; they've suffered enough." At times I felt like a victim for having been born free, healthy and safe in rich America. 

As long as I can remember there was hardly a festive holiday or happy occasion that went by that didn't end in a funeral speech for the family members who weren't there. Every newborn baby or Bar Mitzvah party that I attended had a discussion about a dead or martyred parent. The newborn child was always named after one of its parent's deceased mother or father, sister or brother. Households of that generation persisted with the fear of death and persecution.  For me, it was a time not of coming of age.  Rather, it was a time of adjusting to the dark ages. 

It was very scary to be taught by my traumatized teacher that an SS soldier who would give a ration of an extra morsel of bread to a child would, and could, shoot a group of children who walked out of line asking for the bread.        

As a teenager I visited  friends in their homes. Unexplainably, the conversation would rotate back to the war years. Parents who were survivors of the Holocaust would point to me and say, "Look at this American. I had a son just like him. How old are you?" I would state my age. "Yes, that's how old my son would be, but he was killed in the camp." Another would ask, "How many brothers or sisters do you have?" After answering all their questions, they would say,  "Lucky you! I had that many family members but most of them were killed before their Bar Mitzvah age." I became very sensitive to their cries of misery and untold misfortune. 

With the above in mind, I am wondering why I heard on national radio that Schindler is described as a "Tzadek", a Hebrew name for a most righteous and perfect human being. How outrageous! Schindler was definitely not a righteous gentile deserving to be honored. In fact, neither the money nor the factory rightfully belonged to him. Neither was he honest nor faithful to anyone.  Yet, the film critic speaking on the national radio called him a "Tzadek". 

Newsweek magazine called it "the movie of the year". I was told that  Sid Sheinberg, President and Chief Operating Officer of Universal's parent organization, MCA, Inc., was so moved when viewing the film that he shed tears for 15 minutes. I'm not sure if he cried for the poor Jews or for Schindler. I wouldn't shed any tears for Schindler.

Personally, I don't thank Spielberg for this film. He grew up in the cozy land of Cincinnati where his greatest trauma was the divorce of his parents. It was bad but nothing like the Holocaust. I think of him as a Jewish director who is misdirected, a person who thinks that by showing this movie he has an understanding of the heinous deeds and maliciousness of the Polish and Nazi citizens who watched or assisted in the annihilation of the Jewish people. I don't believe he nor his wife and children have become better Jews due to the film.

To our Jewish Holocaust survivors, there is no purpose for Schindler's List to be shown. There is no reason to bring the misery to them as a form of entertainment and an example of inhumanity's act to humans. Please leave them in peace.

At best, Schindler's List should have been called, "Swindler's List". Instead of him being considered a righteous gentile, he should have been shown as an opportunist, a carpetbagger of the worst kind. 

Why did he make the conscious effort to save the Jews near the end of the war? Was it because Schindler knew Germany was losing and wanted to have some Jews on his side? Was it because Schindler wanted to outsmart the Germans or was it because he wanted play G‑d and establish himself as a more superior Aryan than the other Germans? What moral awaking occurred? I really don't care to know. He went to his grave with the answer.

I understand that for many Jews this film is a sacred cow and nothing bad should be said about it, just as the museums of the Holocaust  are now considered untouchable.    

However, truly speaking, for  young Jewish  Americans,  these films and museums add nothing but fear. It teaches them that the world is never a safe place for Jews. Unfortunately, Jewish young adults may think this gives them more reason to assimilate. Whether it's the "Swindlers" or the "Schindlers", the outcome is the same. Actors in the film take the Jews' factories and workers offering nothing more than the choice between a clean shower or a clean gas chamber.

Throughout Jewish history there have been untold catastrophes. Beginning with the Exodus from Egypt to the  destruction of the first and second temples, millions of Jewish brothers and sisters were sacrificed; hundreds of thousands of children were massacred. Millions of people were dispersed, hundreds of billions of dollars were lost and  a lot of energy that the Jews invested in their countries were nationalized. Yet, there never has been a need for museums. I am sick and tired of having this whole generation identifying Judaism with suffering. Every film that comes out portrays the Jews as victims of the Holocaust running for their lives. Why is it imperative for our children and youth to visit Holocaust museums? Why do they need to hear lectures about skin heads and Neo-Nazis, the growth of anti-semitism and now Schindler's List? Most of our children know so little of Jewish topics, spirituality and history. Some of my students think the West Bank is someplace in France, the name Eichman is a Jewish surname and Yassar Arafat is an Israeli diplomat! 

I know what I am talking about. I may not make movies but I run a school for children. What we should be doing is teaching the richness and everlasting greatness of our noble religion and not the negative experiences.

It is foolhardy to think that an American film director can help preserve Judaism  by showing  a most horrific and pitiful scene of naked Jewish women huddled in the gas chamber. This doesn't make better Jews, just better movies. These movies, museums and displays cause more pain. There is no enlightenment to be gained from seeing Jews as victims over and over again. After viewing such material, the response from my students is, "Why be Jewish?"

The contemporary Jews' reactions of "never again" or "no more Jewish sounding names for our family" are the helpless reaction. Tears shed after viewing these pieces only serve as a catharsis for Jewish guilt.

If only the  millions of dollars spent to produce this film was channeled to build Jewish schools and rehabilitate the children and grandchildren of Holocaust victims, then it would make sense. What is sincerely needed is an end to all negative portrayals of Jews. To be Jewish has come to translate to mean to be a victim, and that has to stop.  "Dayenu", enough.

If for a moment you think that there is a moral lesson to be learned from Schindler's List, tell it to E.T.