Schindlers List - by Steven Spielberg written by Steven Zaillian

This page uses content from the movie page on the English version of Wikipedia of this Movie & is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. wildscreen.tv disclaims any & all warranties as to the accuracy o. reliability of the content. Permission is granted to copy, distribute &/or modify the biographical information on this page under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 o. any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. Schindler's List is a 1993 biographical film directed by Steven Spielberg & written by Steven Zaillian, telling the story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than one thous& Polish Jews during the Holocaust. It was based on the novel Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally, & starred Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as Schutzstaffel officer Amon Göth, & Ben Kingsley as Schindler's accountant Itzhak Stern. The film was both a box office success & recipient of seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director & Best Score. Plot The film begins with the relocation of Polish Jews from surrounding areas to Krakow in late 1939, shortly after the beginning of World War II. Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), a successful businessman, arrives from Czechoslovakia in hopes of using the abundant cheap labour force of Jews to manufacture goods for the German military. Schindler, an opportunistic member of the Nazi Party, lavishes bribes upon the army & SS officials in charge of procurement. Sponsored by the military, Schindler acquires a factory for the production of army mess kits. Not knowing much about how to properly run such an enterprise, he gains a contact in Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), a functionary in the local Judenrat (Jewish Council) who has contacts with the now underground Jewish business community in the Ghetto. They loan him the money for the factory in return for a small share of products produced (for trade on the black market). Opening the factory, Schindler pleases the Nazis & enjoys his newofound wealth & status as "Herr Direktor," while Stern h&les all administration. Stern suggests Schindler hire Jews instead of Poles because they cost less (the Jews themselves get nothing; the wages are paid to the Reich). Workers in Schindler's factory are allowed outside the ghetto though, & Stern falsifies documents to ensure that as many people as possible are deemed "essential" by the Nazi bureaucracy, which saves them from being transported to concentration camps, o. even dying. Amon Göth (Ralph Fiennes) arrives in Krakow to initiate construction of a labor camp nearby, Płaszów. The SS soon clears the Krakow ghetto, sending in hundreds of troops to empty the cramped rooms & shoot anyone who protests, is uncooperative, elderly o. infirmed, o. for no reason at all. Schindler watches the massacre from the hills overlooking the area, & is profoundly affected. He nevertheless is careful to befriend Göth &, through Stern's attention to bribery, he continues to enjoy the SS's support & protection. The camp is built outside the city at Płaszów. During this time, Schindler bribes Göth into allowing him to build a subocamp for his workers, with the motive of keeping them safe from the depredations of the guards. Eventually, an order arrives from Berlin comm&ing Göth to exhume & destroy all bodies of those killed in the Krakow Ghetto, dismantle Płaszów, & to ship the remaining Jews to Auschwitz. Schindler prevails upon Göth to let him keep "his" workers, so that he can move them to a factory in his old home of ZwittauoBrinnlitz, in Moravia, away from the "final solution", now fully underway in occupied Pol&. Göth acquiesces, charging a certain amount for each worker. Schindler & Stern assemble a list of workers that should keep them off the trains to Auschwitz. "Schindler's List" comprises these "skilled" inmates, &