Opinion Piece: Steven Spielberg Thinks ‘Schindler’s List’ Is More Relevant Than Ever. It’s Not.

For all its pathos and earnestness, the movie is too glib in its handling of the Nazis. The concentration camp commandant, Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes), is a sadistic monster who performs cinematic and dramatic acts of brutality to signal to the viewer that he is pure evil. In real life, when Nazis and their ilk are trying to gain power, they often lie about their motives or their goals, and use dog whistles to rally support. They talk incessantly about black crime rates, or, in the Nazis’ case, about Jewish crime rates, in order to create a consensus for strong-arm law-and-order policies. But you don’t need to deconstruct Nazi ideology or understand racist dog whistles to condemn the Nazis in “Schindler’s List.” You just need to watch as Goeth takes up a sniper position and shoots anyone in the camp who happens to pause for a rest. It’s no harder than rooting against Lex Luthor or the Joker.

Meanwhile, the Jewish victims are a friendly, deindividualized mass of Capra-esque bonhomie and virtue, obligingly performing heartwarming schtick in the face of adversity. “It could be worse,” one woman says on seeing her tiny, filthy new ghetto apartment. “How could it be worse!” her husband exclaims with hyperbolic vaudeville timing. The Jewish people in the film don’t try to resist or kill their German oppressors. They don’t even express much in the way of hatred or resentment.

In “Schindler’s List,” Jewish people are always object lessons, never conscious teachers. No Jewish character criticizes or explains the evils of Nazi propaganda. These Jews never talk about how they experience prejudice, or what they would need to fight it.

There is one conversation in the film in which a Jewish person confronts a German about prejudice — except that the Jewish person in question doesn’t even speak. In the scene in question, Goeth debates with himself whether to rape his Jewish maid. He takes both sides of the argument: On the one hand, Jewish people aren’t human, but on the other, he says, quoting Shylock, “Hath not a Jew eyes?” He imagines his housekeeper speaking in defense of Jewish humanity, but in fact, she says nothing. Instead, she stands paralyzed with terror, breathing heavily in a semitransparent shift, sexualized and objectified, until he resolves his internal argument with a beating rather than a rape.

Similarly, the Jews around Schindler only beg him to save their relatives, or praise him for his bravery. They never insist on their rights. It’s Schindler who orders his workers to take off for Friday prayers. He demands that they be good Jews. They only hope that he will be a good gentile. It’s true that some Jews mistrust him at first, but that quickly mellows into love and gratitude.

“Schindler’s List,” then, tells its viewers that when fascism comes, they will find it easy to pick the right side, and that fascism’s targets will be ― and should be ― quiet and grateful.

But, as we are discovering anew, all of this is false. Fascist demagoguery targets people who are disliked and despised by playing on partisanship and existing hatred and fear. A Fox News commentator claims that immigrants will carry smallpox into the U.S. in order to activate anti-immigrant bigotry. Tucker Carlson lies about left protesters attacking his home in order to stir up ambient mistrust of leftists, which the Nazis also used to great effect. Fascists make reasonable-sounding appeals to shared values — for example, by claiming that Nazi alt-right rallies are actually about free speech. Fascists don’t just murder people in the street. At least, not too many. Not at first.

Fascism appeals to the prejudices and partisan identities of white people. Empathy alone is not enough to combat it, because empathy is generally directed first and foremost to the powerful. That’s why “Schindler’s List” has a rich gentile as its protagonist in the first place. Spielberg is Jewish himself, but he, and presumably the studio, didn’t think that viewers could put themselves directly in the place of victims.

To fight fascism, you don’t just need to feel — you need to listen. The targets of fascism are the people best able to express what is happening to them, and what they need to fight it. But “Schindler’s List” presents victims as supplicants. It doesn’t model any way to show support for journalist Jemele Hill, who fell out with her network for saying that Trump is a white supremacist. It doesn’t push you to show solidarity when anti-racist activists demand that Confederate monuments be taken down. It doesn’t tell you that anti-fascist actions are important — even when they disrupt someone’s meal. The virtuous victims in “Schindler’s List” never protest. Because of this kind of representation, it’s easy for people to claim that protesters aren’t virtuous.

“Schindler’s List” doesn’t even provide a useful lens for understanding America’s recent uptick in anti-Semitic attacks, including a recent bombing attempt against billionaire George Soros. Soros is in many ways the most high-profile target of anti-Semitism today. He is at the center of numerous far-right conspiracy theories, and Trump himself blamed Soros for supposedly paying demonstrators protesting Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. That was a lie. But Soros does use his resources to advance progressive causes. He’s got political opinions and the wherewithal to support them. He’s not passive, but he’s a target. Standing with him is not an exercise in noblesse oblige, but in solidarity. “Schindler’s List” doesn’t teach that.

You could argue that “Schindler’s List,” while not perfect, is better than nothing. It condemns fascism in a simplistic way, but it condemns it. It models support for victims in a limited way, but it still models it.

But just as a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, so can a sentimentalized, unrigorous anti-fascism go badly awry. When fascists are presented as completely unsympathetic villains, it becomes difficult to recognize the danger of hatred in your pleasant neighbor. When victims are supposed to be passive and receptive, you’re likely to become angry when Jewish people, or black people, or trans people, point to your friends or allies, or to you, and say, this is a danger to me. Don’t do that.

Sentimentality and self-satisfaction undermine the critical skills and courage needed to oppose fascism when it comes. “Schindler’s List” isn’t solely responsible for our understanding of fascism today, or for our current politics. But it has played a part in both. Twenty-five years on, the main lesson of “Schindler’s List” is that we need to build a better anti-fascism than the one Spielberg gave us.

that writer is a dumbfuck.

[quote] The movie offers platitudes rather than analysis, and reassurance rather than much-needed warnings.

Which, more or less, describes any "serious issue" movie made by him. Even he couldn't fuck up "The Color Purple" with his hacky, tacky hands.

I've always thought Spielberg was a hack. It amazed me how he duped everyone into thinking that he'd made some kind of masterpiece with SL.

WHAT? An American "serious" movie that's basic and superficial? Couldn't be!!

Two great movies - Jaws and Close Encounters. Everything else was meh.

What does Spielberg have to worry about? Donald Trump moved the American embassy to Jerusalem. There may be a rise in anti-semitism, but it's not coming from Donald Trump.

[quote]Two great movies - Jaws and Close Encounters. Everything else was meh.

I never got the love for Close Encounters. It always seemed cheesy to me and not very good science fiction (it was no Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock). I always thought The Color Purple was a good movie, but more because it had excellent actors rather than any actual contributions from Spielberg.

[quote]In “Schindler’s List,” Jewish people are always object lessons, never conscious teachers. No Jewish character criticizes or explains the evils of Nazi propaganda. These Jews never talk about how they experience prejudice, or what they would need to fight it.

That's because Schindler's List is art (ablate middle brow) and not self-consciously didactic, "woke" propaganda. And thank heavens for that.

Was this written by yet another dumb-as-a-bag-of-old-condoms millenial? Jesus.

[quote] That's because Schindler's List is art (ablate middle brow)

"ablate"???

The movie ends in a group hug. ‘Nuff said.

[quote]There may be a rise in anti-Semitism

Rise? Uh, no. Jew hatred is as it has always been. Entrenched, pernicious, pervasive and acceptable. One need look no further than the former President to gauge just how acceptable it is. See DL for further details.

You need to be more "woke" to spelling, R10.

R13 You’re impossibly stupid.

Thank you!

"ablate"???

Auto-correct strikes again. That should be [italic]albeit.[/italic]

R13. You’re not Jewish, obviouisly. Jews. At the most important holocaust memorial in the world. Survivors who escaped the holocaust.

They hug, because it’s a tradition in Shiva to remember the dead, not just the dead we know. At this place, the six million murdered through hate.

There’s nothing inconsequential or irrelevant about this film, except the banality of ignorance.

Trump, for all his faults, is not an anti semite, although some of his supporters are. However, the same can be said for people on the left. Both faction appear to be driven by envy.

Nevertheless, I think SL is a fine film and Spielberg shows uncharacteristic restraint in how he films it. This is not Inglorious Bastards style revenge porn but a serious movie that doesn't glamorize what happened or attempt to rewrite history. The Jews were ripped from their homes, tortured, and killed. You can't compare that to the plight of illegal immigrants for reasons too numerous to mention. For one thing, there are many people who today don't even recognize Israel's right to exist, and I can tell you that they're not all alt right. Jews also experience some of the highest incidents of hate crimes in the US and abroad.

Both the author of this review and Spielberg himself are both wrong.

Meh. Go ahead and re-release it, but nobody is going to care, especially the millennials. The holocaust is over, literally and figuratively, and has been for over 70 years. Dredging it up will only reinforce stereotypes attributed to Jews, but unfortunately they are too lacking in self-awareness to realize that. Hence the "anti-semitism" that they allege any time someone questions or criticizes them. The recent modern-day digital "book burning" of anything related to holocaust discussion that doesn't meet the approval of the Jewish community is also leaving a bad taste in people's mouths. Why try so hard to repress discussion? I don't think dredging up Schindler's List is going to turn out the way they think it will. But if they want to re-release it that's fine, it doesn't affect me either way.

R20. Yes, and we do. In Hebrew, this is called “Parshat Mishpatim”. This stems from Exodus: “You shall not wrong a stranger nor oppress him, for you were a stranger in Egypt”.

This is a law on empathy for us and a lack of empathy is a serious issue. We talk about the lessons of the Midrash, and the need to not turn aside in the face of suffering.

That’s the lesson here. A flawed maybe not so good man didn’t turn aside. His actions, which in no way benefitted him saved many lives.

[quote] Was this written by yet another dumb-as-a-bag-of-old-condoms millenial?

Oh, dear, the irony.

Bigoted scum like R22 hate being reminded of 1,700 years of Catholic Church fomented discrimination, persecution and genocide of Jews.

R24 Come with me to the death camps. Stand with me as I recite the Malei Rachamim, as I have with others. Tell me: will someone say prayers for you decades after your death?

Let’s work on your appreciation for “relelvance”

Ugh. “Relevance”

[quote]His actions, which in no way benefitted him saved many lives.

If Schindler hadn't benefited from his Juden, he'd have turned them over to the Nazis. Oscar Schindler was in no way the righteous Gentile that Spielberg makes him out to be.

[quote]Stand with me as I recite the Malei Rachamim

It's EL Malei (or Moleh) Rachamim.

The article was written by Jewish male feminist, Noah Berlatsky.

Have at him girls!

"Berlatsky sees himself as some sort of philosopher-poet, pontificating on the intricacies of sexuality and race, when in fact his analysis rises no further than that of a teenage boy caught by his parents watching Cinemax. It’s all just a flustered attempt to justify the fact that he finds objectified female bodies arousing. His interest in feminism begins and ends there. And if you doubt that, remember this: We’re talking about a man who dares to host his condescending lectures on a platform that offers faceless female asses to men in exchange for likes on Facebook, a man who thinks Meghan Murphy, not Hugh Hefner, is the appropriate target for scorn and derision in the name of feminism.

Strip away all the theory, all the self-congratulatory Sensitive Dude style, and you find the central problem Berlatsky has with Meghan Murphy: He thinks his penis is a better patriarchy-smashing tool than feminist analysis will ever be."

He queersplains! He mansplains! He has anger issues. I’m bored now. Oy, gewalt.

That’s a really in depth analysis. I agree with a lot of it. The portrayal of nazis verges on the ridiculous. They’ve become red faced villains, quite literally in comic book movies. The hard truth is fascists look like any of us, and in each and every one of our hearts is the potential to fall for these ring wing ideologies, including for Jews and other minorities. Stephen Miller is Jewish after all as he sends kids to modern concentration camps. A real brave movie would show the potential of evil in anyone, given the right circumstances.

Spielberg is a hack, and frankly I believe some of the dark rumours about him.

[quote]A real brave movie would show the potential of evil in anyone, given the right circumstances.

Claude Lanzmann's Shoah.

[quote]and in each and every one of our hearts is the potential to fall for these ring wing ideologies,

R33 errs in believing that bigotry, discrimination and genocide are restricted to a particular political ideology. One need look no further than England's left-wing Labour Party for examples.

Has anyone seen Hogan's Heroes?

I love Schindler's List. Funniest comedy ever!

I disagree, R33. Respectfully. I lived in Germany in the late 70s and early 80s while I was in the military. The banality of evil isn’t just its ordinariness, it’s in its persistance. I speak German (not that dreadful GI “Ein bier bitte” and “Guten Tag, Fraulein Bieber” crap). I mean I speak German well enough to have been a rated simultaneous translator. So, I had a pretty nice place to live because Germans would rent to me in a small village.

Many older Germans of the period kept a room to rent to GIs because of the Marshall Plan. They were so grateful to the US for rebuilding their country that 30 years later, they were still providing housing to us. Some of the more sought-after places were selective, would rent only to Navy or Air Force for example. The best places wanted only the military who served in intelligence and spoke German.

My first room was with a nice lady who asked me to leave after a few months when she realized I was Jewish. My second place was an apartment I took over, but shared with a guy and a girl. The neighbor across the hall was a concentration camp surivor - gay. He was Jewish,but convinced the Nazis that he was only gay so he was sent to a labor camp and not to the jewish camps. When he was released at the end of the war, he learned his entire family had been killed.

We’d go for coffee on Sundays and people would stare at him. He didn’t have the tattoo. But everyone knew, and this wasn’t a small town. He was in his late 60s. On one of these trips, he suggested we go to the public antique market - like a rummage sale. Much of what was for sale was officially forbidden: nazi era books, memorabilia. All completely illegal. If I walked up, they’d show me what was for sales and talk with me. If my neighbor walked up, they’d ignore him. He was still an outcast, although he was a victim, a survivor of the camps.

At my next apartment, my landlord was direct. They were Sudeten Germans from what is today Czech Republic. They loved Hitler and the Nazi Party. When the war ended, they were chased out of Czechoslovakia across the border into Germany with the clothes on their back. They resented being treated as inferiors as they had been the rulers of the Czechs and Hungarians for hundreds of years. They were bitter about the loss of power and convinced the American, French and British Jews were behind the war and that Roosevelt was really a Jew.

They hated Roosevelt but were still grateful for the Marshall Plan and so rented the top floor of the house as an apartment - to white only, german speaking military. I was the first non-officer they’d rented to.

A friend gave me a menorah as a gift, whiich my landlady saw. She routinely checked on the apartment and was pretty protective of me. She asked if I was Jewish, and when I told her I was she was shocked. But, the next time I saw her she gave me a gift with a star of david on it.

But whenever we’d go out, or I’d help out - and we’d talk politics - I’d get an earful about how much better everything was under the Reich.

I’m truly sorry r38. It’s terrible you had to endure those things. There’s too much bigotry in the world. My post wasn’t to deny or minimize anti-Semitism, but rather to acknowledge it as one of many kinds of racism. All prejudice to me is heinous, and anyone is capable of falling into such beliefs. We always have to watch ourselves-it’s very possible for a group to both suffer from racism and perpetuate it.

[quote]The portrayal of nazis verges on the ridiculous. They’ve become red faced villains, quite literally in comic book movies.

Wait, we're supposed to have nuanced Nazis now? #NotAllNazis?

I went to the Pittsburgh Symphony concert for the Tree of Life shooting victims last month, where Itzhak Perlman played music from Schindler's List. It spooks me somewhat, realizing that the Holocaust now has what some think of as theme music. I have my own theme music for the synagogue shooting, though. I was supposed to see Le Nozze di Figaro that afternoon at Carnegie Mellon, but everything was canceled. It took me some time to stop listening somewhat obsessively to it.

Ach...music.

Nuance isn’t akin to rightness or goodness r40. How many people in your family, friend group, or office harbour racist views or support racist policies and foreign wars raged to control resources? I’ll bet there’s a few, and they’re not foaming at the mouth bigots, just people who’ve accostomed themselves to a level of structural violence. Truly beating racism is understanding these tendencies so we can fight them.

[quote]Truly beating racism is understanding these tendencies so we can fight them.

The "tendencies" are called the human condition, something you will never beat. Every human, every society requires a scapegoat, a target for their failures. Xtian and Muslim societies both codified that target into their ideologies, cultures and societies, where it remains to this day, i.e., the Jews are the cause of our misfortune.

R42 I love the delicate way you distinguish the ambiguity of goodness and rightness. That isn’t easy, whether from Faith, Philosophy or linguistics.

Great post R38! Truly. As an aside, I’ve been binging on Philip Kerr’s Bernie Gunther series (currently on “If the Dead Rise Not”, and it’s difficult not to think of Trump often throughout the series. And the monster that he is.

R38 is a hypnotic read. I’m glad you’ve shared that. Are you gay? Only wondering if you had a chance to talk more with the gay survivor about his life.

[quote] When fascists are presented as completely unsympathetic villains, it becomes difficult to recognize the danger of hatred in your pleasant neighbor.

[quote] In real life, when Nazis and their ilk are trying to gain power, they often lie about their motives or their goals, and use dog whistles to rally support. They talk incessantly about black crime rates, or, in the Nazis’ case, about Jewish crime rates, in order to create a consensus for strong-arm law-and-order policies.

You mean people in politics lie in order to disguise their motives? What a revelation. Convenient that his article only mentions Trump and none of the tactics employed by the left. Tucker Carlson's family was threatened by protestors outside his home, which there is video footage of, yet he accuses Carlson of being a liar which torpedoes his credibility as far as I'm concerned. He just throws around the term Nazi in his defense of open borders which is absurd.

[quote] Fascism appeals to the prejudices and partisan identities of white people. Empathy alone is not enough to combat it, because empathy is generally directed first and foremost to the powerful.

Empathy has become the most important thing we've been striving for as institutional protections no longer guarantee anti discrimination. The problem is we can't enforce it. The best thing we can do is encourage honest discussion, but we can't if we go around silencing people for expressing an opinion we don't agree with.

R38, thanks for sharing that, it was very moving.

Regarding the article, I do worry about illness brought into the country by immigrants who do not undergo the testing required by those who go through the proper process. I practiced immigration law for a few years and I think this is a valid issue. I’m not a Fox News watcher and I don’t think this problem is raised just to foster “anti-immigrant bigotry,” as they author states. It’s just a practical problem.

The other thing he said I found unconvincing is that animosity towards G Soros is based on his religion. I think he’s like the Koch brothers and is targeted strictly due to his ability to influence social change with his wealth. It’s disigenous to claim he was the victim of a recent bomb threat and imply it was due to his religion and fail to mention that the Clintons, the Obamas, CNN, Cory Booker and other prominent “lefties” of various faiths also received bombs from the same individual.

[quote]For one thing, there are many people who today don't even recognize Israel's right to exist, and I can tell you that they're not all alt right.

Namely the Democratic Party, who in their last convention tried to erase Israel from their party platform.

[quote]Xtian and Muslim societies both codified that target into their ideologies, cultures and societies, where it remains to this day, i.e., the Jews are the cause of our misfortune.

Get out of here with that crap. Christians do not believe Jews are the cause of their misfortune. They believe that humans are born into sin and it's the evil nature within that must look for redemption. Christians wouldn't choose a Jewish Messiah if they blamed Jews.

R51 is so delusional, it's hard not to burst out laughing at this extremely naïve post.

R51 is obviously ignorant of the history of Jews in both Xtian and Muslim countries, who were and are blamed for social ills and misfortunes from the Black Death to poisoning wells to using Xtian childrens' blood for Passover matzah to the Muslims "flooding" Western Europe to far too much political influence. Jews are subject to a range and level of bigotry that would cause outrage if directed at another minority. But that's what Jews are there for, innit.

I am not ignorant to the history of Jews. You are the ignorant one to believe that just because someone calls themselves a Christian doesn't mean they are following Christian ideology. Nowhere in the New Testament does it advocate for harassing or killing Jewish people.

R54 And for 1,700 years Catholic and Protestant Churches, their leaders and billions of their followers fomented Jew hatred, persecuted and butchered Jews because none of them had bothered to read the Xtian Bible.

You truly are a complete imbecile.

You're the imbecile r55. Once again, because you're obviously a bit slow, nowhere in the New Testament does it advocate for the persecution of Jewish people. If you can find a verse that does, please share it.

And you really have to leave the Catholics out of the conversation, because nowhere in the New Testament does it advocate praying to Mary or any other person besides God. The NT is very clear that you pray directly to God. Some ideas were forced on the belief system by people who were making errors.

r56 Imbecile, please.

Indeed, bitch.

Learn something Imbecile R56.

bitches please

Learn something Imbecile R56. Catholic Church helping Nazi butchers to escape prosecution.

We have a concentration camp now for gays, in Chechnya—but, that’s ignored by everyone.

I was once friends with a fundie family who were not that bad in the 1980s, but in the 1990s as they started listening to hate radio and Fox News and becoming more radicalized to the point of getting kicked out of their church, things really went south.

The daughter that I was friends with had been in my high school class, and she was fluent in German and spent a couple of years in Germany as a nanny for an American officer stationed over there. When she came back, she talked initially about how great it was to be around people like her, which I thought she meant because her family were relatively recent German immigrants.

Later, she told me in confidence that initially, nobody wanted to talk to her about the military, and when she said she was annoyed by the sounds of planes flying overhead Germans would look at her and hiss "That's the sound of freedom.!"

After a few months when she ingratiated herself with the locals, she found several who confided in her that they had said it sarcastically, and things were indeed better under the Reich. They missed the way things uses to be. They kept it quiet, until they decided you could be trusted.

And so she came back with this idea that the Republicans were basically the good versions of the Nazis, and that Nazis weren't that bad anyway. It wasn't more than a couple years after that I started seeing right-wingers online posting old Nazi anti-semitic propaganda, and the Tea Party was born around then. It's been escalating for decades, and I agree with the people earlier in the spread who said that it never really went away, it was just kind of tamped down.

The idiot "christian" on here is typical of the arrogance that certain Christians of all races exhibit. They , individually think that they alone have the full over standing of The Bible and because they do not act "antisocial" based upon their knowledge of The Book and they are Christian, then Christianity in and of itself hasn't been used by Christians as a force for evil. Take your tail out of reading ONE book and read up some on history. And if your Anti Semitism is so strong and you can'r countenance that, then check who else Christians have fucked over in the name of "spreading the word." I mean , come on. Christianity has Black people exhibiting one of the biggest Stockholm Syndromes ever , only surpassed by Black people and another Abrahamic, imperialistic religion and white people vis a vis the dead end of White Male Supremacy most of which was "justified" by Christianity.

Ben Kingsley was better than Ralph Fiennes.

I think this thread is fascinating, r38, posts like that are what keep me coming back to DL.

We have got to wrap our minds around the reality that we are living in highly complex times. Yes, Putin has still lit and fed the fires of the alt-right, but as this thread shows, there are additional “rivers of hate” that flow from different sources aside from Putin.

Listen, whether Spielberg was a hack or not, it’s a movie that at that time was groundbreaking. Never before had the graphic brutality of the camps been shown. Never before had the humiliation of the Jews been revealed in such a raw form. Never before had the true terror and suffering of the camps been displayed. It needed to be made.

Having said all that, we have evolved since it’s release, people are much more media savvy AND more propaganda savvy. Maybe not the average joe, but many here on DL understand the power of images and movies and the messages they send about homosexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, politics, religion. I agree this movie could reinforce stereotypes, and I also agree that it doesn’t delve into the causes of fascism and how it organically transforms people from good to bad. Maybe it’s time for a new movie? But I am still grateful this one was made and that I watched it. Times change. Some movies hold up, some don’t.

In 1982 I was taking the amtrak down to St. Pete and I met a 50ish German guy who was rather good looking so I flirted with him outrageously and spent hours talking to him. When I realized he was on vacation from germany and was the right age to have been aware of ww2,I started asking him a bunch of questions. He told me he was in the Hitler Youth as a teen,and that joining was mandatory. The town he was from(the name escapes me now) was smallish and only had a handful of jewish residents at the start of the war. I asked him what happened to them and he said that one day they were there,the next day they were gone.He swore that at the time,no one really knew about the camps though there were suspicions,but as it was wartime and being patriotic meant you didnt ask too many questions. He did say that at the end of the war his whole area was beyond grateful they were occupied by the Americans,as everyone knew the price the Russians were extracting.He was a lovely,charming and interesting man,and quite attractive and open to advances,but as silly as it sounds now I just couldnt get over the thought he was alive and compliant when so much murder was being committed.

Along those lines I was neighbors in St. Pete with this darling old Polish lady who I used to help carry her groceries in,take out her garbage,etc,and she would bake me the most amazing desserts. We were having coffee one time and nibbling on some heavenly pastries and I asked her if she had any family in the area or in Poland. This look crossed her face and she quietly said that she had once had a husband,son and daughter but they had died during the war. I didnt dare ask her anything else so I dont know the whole story,but to this day I wish Id have found a way to hear the rest of it because I didnt realize that I was talking to people who had lived through history. In St. Pete at that time there were lots of ww2 vets and people who had lived through it all.but I was young and just didnt think about it all . As an aside,some of those old dudes were serious sex hounds! I waited tables then,and some of those old farts hit on me all the time! I took a few up on it too,dont ya know.

R46 Yrs, I am - and Jewish. I was 19. We aspent a good amount of time together. He had been “adopted” by the GI’s..

The lesson I learned is that you never will see it coming. They didn’t see it coming in Germany, or in Hungary or later in the Balkans. They didn’t see it in the Hutu conflict.

Nobody is paying attention to the Chechens. The patterns are clear, though. The political and religious speakers promoting anti-gay issues as a threat on the family. This is followed by creation of a political party with “Christian” values that elects a slate.

Once the slate had enough control, the Party announces specific Pro-Family measures like State Allowances for child raising, free education, transportation passes.

Better schools become competitive and party standing is crucial to acceptance.

Churches promote the Party message - or else.

It’s already happening in Hungary, Russia, Rumania, Slovakia, Kenya, Nigeria. Americans are frequent speakers and promoters of the legislation.

The abuse and killings in Russia, the concentration camps in Chechnya are the tip of the iceberg. When a US Government not only doesn’t speak out nor halt Americans involved in fascism abroad, what does this say about the true nature of the government?

R68, no one sees the warning signs because no one wants the responsibility of acting. Everyone knew what was going on in Cambodia, for example, but no one had the will to intervene.

Chechnya is predominantly (90 - 95%?) Muslim so I don't know why you're talking about Xtians in reference to it.

[quote]Namely the Democratic Party, who in their last convention tried to erase Israel from their party platform.

The Democratic Party would do well to be more concerned with America

I could never watch that film. I learned the truth about Nazis when I was 10...I have despised Nazis forever, after that. Why hasn't every child been taught the truth about Hitler and his regime? That is something I don't understand. And why isn't every child taught the truth about Netanyahu and his horrid treatment of Palestinians?

[quote]Never before had the graphic brutality of the camps been shown. Never before had the humiliation of the Jews been revealed in such a raw form. Never before had the true terror and suffering of the camps been displayed. It needed to be made.

Not a feature film, but Alain Resnais' documentary "Night and Fog" was released in 1955 and was very graphic and shocking.

[quote]The 1955 release of Alain Resnais' documentary on the concentration camps, Night and Fog, marked a change in French collective memory of World War Two by introducing images the Holocaust into the public arena for the first time since the war. 1 This visual remembrance appeared to fill a void in the French post-war discussion of the 1940-45 experience, a discussion which had, up until this time, largely ignored the destruction of the Jews. The film seemed to expose the experience of a group of war victims who had previously been ignored. However, the manner in which the documentary depicted the Holocaust revealed that alongside the 'official' silence about French complicity in the Final Solution, a different kind of silence would persist within French war memory--one which, paradoxically, said a deal about the French political atmosphere during the 1950s and its connections to the second World War, but little about the destruction of the Jews.

R38 / R68 I notice that you didn't mention the horrors occurring in Palestine.

Also quite noticeable is that you never, ever hear a Jew express thanks or appreciation for the millions of non-Jew lives that were lost fighting the Axis Powers on their behalf in WWII. It is extremely off-putting that Jews refer to WWII as the Jew-centric "holocaust", never WWII, as though the only thing that matters was what the Jews suffered through, nobody else is really important. Even worse is any discussion regarding TH/WWII that doesn't align with the Jewish version of events is immediately shut down as "anti-semitic" to the point of where they actually demand laws preventing "holocaust denial". Name one other example in modern history where people are forbidden to discuss a war. This again exemplifies how the Jewish suffer from a lack of self-awareness, they don't understand or don't care how this comes across to the rest of the civilized world and the whole subject of the holocaust becomes less like a lesson in history and more like a propaganda piece.

Which is why I think that re-releasing Schindler's List will only reek of desperation to continue to paint Jews as victims when in reality they have done quite well for themselves and come across as rather ungrateful in the grand scheme of things.

Can someone spare an FF for r74?

That's right R75, please prove me right by shutting down any discussion or criticism of the Jewish community. That's not the answer.

r76 Anti-Semite

Dear R74, other than bloviating on line, what are YOU doing to alleviate the pain and suffering of the Palestinians.

Much like their Arab brothers, you really don't give a shit about Palestinians other than promoting your own agenda.

The suffering of Palestine is caused by Israel via US support r78. The US playing hegemon with the ME means they throw support and huge dollars behind certain countries to promote their agenda of keeping the flow of resources in their favor. Arab countries can do very little to help anyone as any action they take is controlled in some way by US hegemony. Even Israel is only useful so long as it remains a countrywide base for US warplanes. The real reason many Americans are turning from pro to neutral or negative on Israel is that they’re tired of these imperialist games and want to focus on green tech, infrastructure and Medicare at home. It’s not just Israel’s heinous policies of exploitation and right wing nationalism, though that doesn’t help.

But anyway this thread isn’t about the ME. Jews aren’t collectively responsible for Israel anymore than Muslims are for Saudi Arabia.

SL shouldn't be re-released, but a new Holocaust movie would be fine. SL had its chance to resonate, let some other director take a turn.

[quote]Also quite noticeable is that you never, ever hear a Jew express thanks or appreciation for the millions of non-Jew lives that were lost fighting the Axis Powers on their behalf in WWII.

Why do you conveniently forget that they were vastly outnumbered by the millions of non-Jewish inhabitants of occupied Europe forced to live under the Nazi regime? Who was fighting on *their* behalf?

Netanyahu is a disgusting thug that Deplorables chose to vote for...it does not mean the whole country of Israel is evil, Netanyahu is evil.

R38, I am so sorry for those experiences. A close friend of mine dated a Lebanese guy who ended up going to Germany for medical school. He hated it in Germany. He worked in different parts of the country and was treated like shit everywhere. He had people follow him home, people deface his property, people call him a "jew" to mock him for his big nose and the doctor he was training under would give him the absolute most undesirable jobs to work on. This was last decade, btw. Despite the common feeling that Germany has "moved on", it seems like it hasn't.

R79 The suffering of the Palestinian people is a reflection of the miserable state of leadership that has existed since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

The Balfour arrangement was supposed to provide a framework for peace and democracy in the region. France, England and other European powers pretty much divided every thing up with the best of intentions.

It worked out pretty much like the Congo, Rhodesia and South Africa.

The irony is the pro Palestinian crowd advocates and defends the violent means used by the PLO, the Black Separatists, Fatah, Hamas and the indiscriminate use of bombings against school buses, restaurants and housing developments. You know, the stuff the Geneva Convention holds as war crimes - more so when combatants are not in uniform which means they can be shot on sight as spies.

The expectation of Israel is that it should simultaneously self-dissolve, not defend itself against armed combatants nor defend its citizens is stupid. There is no Palestinian government. There is no authority with which to negotiate. Ramallah is a failure that it cannot build a just society. It is a doomed society as it has been since 1948 that cannot accept coexistence with Israel or Jordan.

Both must cease for Palestine to exist, for the extreme radicalization of its empty promises to be fulfilled. But it can’t. It never has had backing from the Arab League, the United Nations or any other organization except terrorists.

That’s the irony. The farce of the Palestinian regime is that every thing it accuses the Israeli government of doing is what it does to its own people. The Israelis hold elections, build a nation. The Palestinians ignore elections and build bombs with money and weapons from Iran and North Korea.

The Palestinian government is utterly base and immoral. The self-serving leaders who have bled international aid into their own Swiss bank accounts while the Palestinian people suffer ios the ultimate statement of how morally bankrupt the PA is.

Netanyahu will be removed through criminal investigation and a democratic process. Name a single PA leader removed the same way.

One long defence of violence against innocents because you identify with the perpetrators r84. Your post is a tragedy, and attitudes like yours are why Israel can never become a normal country and will stay marred in ethnonationial violence that turns world opinion against it as a state. You are not helping, but making everything worse. Try and do better.

[quote]Also quite noticeable is that you never, ever hear a Jew express thanks or appreciation for the millions of non-Jew lives that were lost fighting the Axis Powers on their behalf in WWII.

Well, r74, for one thing, the soldiers who died fighting the Axis powers weren't there on behalf of the Jews. The soldiers who died fighting the Germans et al. were there because their countries had been invaded or because their home countries were allied to countries that had been invaded. English, Canadian and U.S. troops didn't land in Normandy to save Jews. Concentration camps were liberated by Allied troops who were horrified by what they found. But that wasn't the goal of the military. And I certainly have read comments of gratitude from people in those camps for being saved by troops, being fed by those troops.

The writer makes a good point. The movie, as the poster said, showed how one person can save lives. That is what makes the films so sentimental and life-affirming.

However sentimental and life-affirming doesn't show how and why fascist regimes came to be and worked on a local level that the characters in the movie lived.

R46 Yes, I’m gay and jewish. More of a ju-bu (secular jew who nominally follows buddhist precepts).

R85 Ah, the old “innocents” argument. Tell me, what were the sins of Klinghoffer that merited him being thrown over the side of cruise ship? How about the Olympic athletes in Munich?

It’s the same “crime” each time. They were Jews. Whether it’s blowing up a bus, a Sbarros, the constant bombing of housing developments and schools - the only reason is because they want to kill as many Jews as possible. And why would that surprise you? The foundational articles of the PLO were written by a fascist who supported the aims and goals of the Nazis, literally. His uncle was the the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the acknowledge fascist arm and ally of Nazi Germany. The Grand Mufi of Palestine was a guest of Adolf Hitler’s in Berlin and openly supported the extermination of the Jews.

His nephew? Arafat. So continue and tell me more how the barbarism of the Nazis, as enthusiastically enshrined in the original Brotherhood charter that calls for marching all Jews into the sea was ever changed. Show us where the PLO and Fatah have ever demonstrated the slightest control over violence or whether they use it intentionally as a weapon to murder as many Jews as they can. A tool consistent with their charter from the 1930 and their aim of extermination of all Jews.

At the risk of being lambasted,I really wish someone would explain to me why Israel even exists? The fact they claimed a foreign country as their birthplace based on so called scripture from 2000 years ago and use religion to basically occupy someone elses country has never made much sense to me. I think the bible is bullshit anyway,but honestly its more the fact that Jewish people,who indeed have been persecuted over history,just dont seem to see that what they are doing is wrong. At least to me,and Im no genius.

I don't get it either, R90. And I am a Christian who DOES believe in holy scripture---both OT and NT. But I consider much of the Bible to be metaphorical. I don't know why Jews believe the holy land has to be a specific place. Can't it be the community of faithful Jews---wherever they may find themselves?

Jesus said: "For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” So for us Christians, anywhere we worship together is a holy place....living rooms, foxholes, basement churches and cathedrals.

Based on these responses, it’s clear that this movie won’t Change anyone’s mind. Everyone has their own narrative and they’re going to stick to it no matter what.

Posts like r89 are proof that Israel’s supporters are its own worst enemies. Justifying collective violence against innocents and sinking deeper and deeper into entrenched racism will lose the already tentative and limited support their beloved (?) nation state has. No one wants to treat with militant occupiers spitting racist epithets every second sentence. Normal countries don’t act like that.

But this thread is supposed to be about what a trite hack Spielberg is as a filmmaker. So anyway...

Damn r2

[quote] It doesn’t model any way to show support for journalist Jemele Hill, who fell out with her network for saying that Trump is a white supremacist.

You really paying attention. Good stuff. Thanks brother.

R90. Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people, who have continuously lived there for over 6000 years. No matter who has occupied them, whether the Babyloanians, the Romans, the Ottomans or the British - it’s been their homeland without interruption.

It’s not a question of anecdote and legend. Archeological digs throughout Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, across the Sinai prove the existence of Jewish settlements, how frequently they were destroyed in war and the occupiers then built their cities and altars over the Jewish ones.

What you have is a people who have repeatedly been driven from their homes and who have repeatedly returned. They are no different than any victims of war and genocide. That your sympathies lie with the oppressors is the moral outrage.