Is Schindler’s List Trivializing the Holocaust?
The movie, Schindler's List, has an essential place among the films about the Holocaust. The film is about a German saving almost 1300 Jewish people from the Holocaust (Leibovitz 2011). The story is a little confusing for some viewers because despite what many had learned about the Germans during the Nazi regime, it was a German who was helping the Jewish people. This implies that there was communication between the Jewish people and the Germans (Weinraub 2016). The existence of the communication between the two social groups might mean that a social solution could have developed during the Holocaust times. Moreover, many other movies about the Holocaust do not imply anything about the communication between the Germans and the Jewish people (Lanzmann 2012).
Some Jewish filmmakers and intellectuals, led by Claude Lanzmann criticize the Schindler’s List movie for trivializing the Holocaust by adding the idea of social interaction between the Germans and the Jewish people. According to this approach, there has not occurred any positive social interaction during the Holocaust. The German people did not develop a social dialogue with the Jewish people to find a more acceptable approach to the problem (Lanzmann 2012). The Nazis were insistent, and they did not face any resistance against their regime during the Holocaust. Therefore, this shows that a German who helped 1300 Jewish people trivializes the story of the Holocaust.
It is possible that the critique of the Schindler’s List to be acceptable. However, accusing all the German people and trying to protect the high-level drama of the Holocaust story in the movies might not be a peaceful way. This approach might damage the relations at the current time. The developed countries have taken some measures for any possible occurrence of a racist or anti-Semitist movement. While there are many people who have a strong negative thoughts about the Holocaust, there are still some racist and anti-Semitist social groups that are active in the European and Middle Eastern countries. When developing a social solution in order to prevent potential future Holocausts, the movies, the printed or online articles, and other similar media tools should not create an adverse social environment condition (Collins 2016).
Though all the European countries are teaching the new generation the negativity of anti-Semitism and racism, some religious states or the states with a religious part of power in the Middle East explicitly or implicitly supports the ideology of the anti-Semitism. Notably, the ongoing Palestine problem in the Middle East is creating a suitable environment for the anti-Semitist movements in the Middle East. Considering that many Middle Eastern people or the Muslim people live in the European countries, making movies exhibiting the intense negativity about the Holocaust, or defending the rights of the Jewish people because of the losses during the Holocaust might create relatively more social problems in Europe.
The Schindler's List movie has developed a relatively more humanistic approach to the Holocaust. It has made the audience develop a relatively better and smoothing understanding of the negative situation the Jewish people suffered during the Holocaust time. Therefore, the approach developed in the Schindler’s List movie by Spielberg has proved to us that the media tools can create relatively better ways for understanding the different social groups.
Consequently, pursuing the aim of developing social peace in every country, it is relatively better to develop a language of peace between the religious and social groups. The media materials reminding what negativities occurred in the past do not solve any social problem and do not contribute to compensate the losses in the past. Additionally, it should be allowed to create some fictions which might include unrealistic story aspects in it because might be a proper way for developing the social peace. Therefore, the Schindler’s List might be somewhat unrealistic for some Jewish people but it made an essential contribution to protecting the peace today and in the future.
Works Cited
Collins, Daniel. 2016. "The Media-Assisted Manufacturing Of “Corbyn’S Anti-Semitism Crisis”". Daniel Collins. https://danieldcollins.wordpress.com/2016/05/01/the-manufacturing-of-labours-anti-semitism-crisis-with-the-help-of-the-media/.
Weinraub, Bernard. 2016. "The New York Times: Best Pictures". Nytimes.Com. https://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/movies/bestpictures/schindler-ar1.html.
Lanzmann, Claude. 2012. "UCU: HUM 291 Approaches To The Humanities". Phil.Uu.Nl. http://www.phil.uu.nl/~rob/2007/hum291/lanzmannschindler.shtml.
Leibovitz, Liel. 2011. "‘Schindler’S List’ Is Everything That’S Wrong With American-Jewish Life". Tablet Magazine. http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/85945/listless.
