School Ties

School Ties

Schindler's List is one of the most powerful movies of all time. It tells the powerful true story of the German businessman Oskar Schindler who comes to Nazi- captured Poland looking for economic blooming and leaves as a savior of more than 1,100 Jews. Many of our grandparents told us of the stories and we learned about it in school year after year, but to see it put to life was a totally touching experience. Some of us couldn't even bare to look at those gruesome scenes.

The movie starts out in a Jewish family's home. The Jews are reciting in prayer for the Sabbath day around a table full of lit candles. When the Jews are gone from the house the candles slowly burn out.

The German forces defeat the Polish in weeks. Soon afterward, the Jews are forced out of their homes to report to the train station, where their names are registered. Over 10,000 Jews are being shipped off to Krakow. People tease and yell at any Jew they see in the street. There is even a little girl screaming "Goodbye Jews" repeatedly as the line of Jews is moving and kids are throwing dirt at them.

In Krakow the ghetto is overcrowded with Jews. The Jewish people are all gathered together and organized into working groups by the Judenrat (twenty-four elected Jews responsible for the order). Oskar Schindler visits the ghetto. He is a German businessman, who wishes to see Itzhak Stern; a Jew is good at accounting and used to own a pot-making factory. Jews are no longer allowed to own businesses, so Oskar makes a deal with Itzhak, and plans to take over the factory after trading money and appointing him his factory manager.

It is now March 20, 1941 - the deadline for entering the ghetto. Edict 44/91 forms a Jewish area. All Jews are now forced to pack their things and move out of their homes by German soldiers. When the Jews arrive to the ghetto, they receive "housing assignments" and are forced to be in tight living quarters.

The next morning, the people are gathered outside and information on their education and working experiences are reported. Some of the Jews that can't be used for work are loaded into trucks and sent off to horrible camps. Some of the Jews that are able to work will soon report to Oskar Schindler's factory.

Under Sterns influence, Schindler has come to feel an pity and responsibility toward his workers, and when the Nazis confine all Jews to a forced labor camp commanded by the sadistic Amon Goeth, Schindler volunteers to keep "his Jews" confined at the factory.

At his own expense, he constructs barracks and strings barbed wire. He apparently creates an outpost of the labor camp, which in reality is a safe haven from the sinister Goeth, who regularly sends "unfit" Jewish workers to Auschwitz.

Oskar starts to promote...

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