Schindler's List

This movie reflection is the historical drama named “Schindler’s List” was directed by Steven Spielberg in 1993 based on the actual story and novel “Schindler’s Ark” by an Australian novelist, Thomas Keneally. This film is mainly focused on racism (Germans – Jews) and Holocaust during World War II (1939~1945) involves good and evil, dehumanization and humanism, war and people, hypocrisy, and anti-war and anti-violence. This film depicts the events in detail at that time and involves two objectives. The first one is the cult of humanism through the Schindler’s list. The second one is to help the audience to experience the Holocaust indirectly and remind inhumanity awareness. 

There are two main actors; Oskar Schindler and Amon Goeth, who represent different human nature - good and evil. Although Schindler and Amon are the members of the Nazi Party, they have totally different attitudes and behaviors on Jewish.

Although Schindler is a German business, he saved the more than thousands of lives of Polish-Jewish refugees during World War II, by employing them in his factory becomes a hero of Jewish later. For the first time, he collaborated with the heads of Nazi to use the Jews free for his factory, but he finds the conscience in mind through the Jewish accountant Issac Stern. Besides, after he saw that the slaughter of Jews by Nazi Germans, he wants to rescue the Jewish people as many as he can leads him to be a humanist. Schindler try to conciliate Amon indirectly to be a generous officer can get more fame and reputation from his soldiers and others. On the other hand, Amon is a notorious German officer, who many people randomly within the camp regardless of elderly, women, and children. However, despite all of his actions, Amon does not feel any guilty becomes to be like a demon.

Every people have different attitudes and even behaviors in a same situation. Amon has the highest position in the ghetto, so he can influence and control people by his own. Then, why Amon commits the crime and becomes evil? Firstly guessing, when people grasp an opportunity of influence or control others, many people take advantage of it in which the temptation of power or the recognized power of social situations. Secondly, dehumanization always brings to unethical problems or moral conflict. The process of the perpetrator always looks at the victim as a non-human.  If so, why ordinary people do evil or do good? Do people were born as like that from the first? Is the issue of nurture or nature? Sometimes, situational foundations determine of people’s “evil” behaviors, such as demean dehumanization, harm, destroy, or kill innocent people.

There is no specific reason why “evil” occurs, but mostly pathetic, unhappy childhood, overheated emotions, experience with hurt are the common causes. The motivation to make evil behavior is surprisingly mediocre. Most people are exposed to at least one violent or life-threatening situation during the course of their lives. For that reason, some people experience acute distress and helpless states from which they are unable to recover.

Based on the psychology of evil and heroism, why good people are sometimes transformed into perpetrators? How people become monsters or heroes in a situation and why do good people turned evil. In our real life, evil can be fostered by dehumanization, diffusion or responsibility, obedience to authority, unjust systems, group pressure, moral disengagement, and anonymity, to name a few. According to Zimbardo’s Standford Prison Experiment (1971), the prison guards abused prisoners and handled them roughly. Guards behave brutally and prisoners behave incorrigibly because of the roles they have to play. Whereas the prison guards, the prisoners experienced and showed extreme hostility, hopelessness, low self-esteem, and depression in a short time. Zimbardo’s the Stanford Prison Study demonstrated the impact that role expectations can have on behavior. As we can see the truth through this experiment, evil is a normal and common phenomenon in human’s part appears not only to psychopath, but also to ordinary people.

Milgram’s experiment (1974) related on shocking obedience to authority figures supported that the Zimbardo’s study. Milgram believed that the situational variables have a strong sway than person factors in determining obedience. “Often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.” by Milgram. In the film, even Jews in the camp physical and psychological immediacy was increased, the participant’s compliance decreased.

Although many Polish-Jewish refugees who faced of suffering and death, many Holocaust survivors exhibited high resilience - the capacity to overcome the exposure to severe risk that they have experienced. This is the power of resilience (inner strength) allows us to overcome life’s huddles, such as stressful life events, mental illness, persistent negative mood, crisis, pain, fear, suffering, or death. For Jewish people, high resilience shows overcome tendencies to feel like a victims of the Nazi, and stay detached from “victim” reactions in others.