I have seen this movie countless times and loved it every time. This was the first time I sat down to read the book and I’m very glad I did. As expected, it included much more detail than could be pressed into the movie, even with as long as it is. While there were variances, characters that were two in the book yet merged into one for the movie, scenes that were split in the book but condensed in the movie, the movie followed very closely the overall outline of the book.I loved the author's adherence to facts. Through records and interviews, he was able to rebuild this with more accuracy than I would have ever expected. That he even included notations when he didn't have an exact record but was going on supposition of what the result of some private conversation was drew me in all the more. Though I, of course, don't have the ability to go through and verify everything in the book, his admittance when something was a guess brings me to believe that it was written as factually as possible.I was a bit disappointed that Itzhak Stern was not shown as prominently in the book as he was in the movie. Instead, he seems to have been melded with the man Goldberg who was the actual typist of the List. I was happy to see, though, that Stern along with several other families from the factory were a permanent part of Schindler’s life during the years after the war.As much as I knew of what was done during the war, the atrocities inflicted on the Jews (and others) by the Germans, one part of this book stood out to me above the rest. It wasn’t surprising to learn that the synagogues were destroyed by the Germans. Not a fact I knew, but it was in keeping with what I was aware of. The graves, though. The graves of the long dead were desecrated as well. That it wasn’t enough to kill the Jews who still lived, that they felt it necessary to go beyond that, is unfathomable to me.“When level with the Administration Building, the Adler moved onto a prison road paved with Jewish gravestones. The campsite had been till two years before a Jewish cemetery. Commandant Goeth, who claimed to be a poet, had used in the construction of his camp whatever metaphors were to hand. This metaphor of shattered gravestones ran the length of the camp, splitting it in two…”This was made even more profound to me in a later passage in the book. Stern was giving a tour of the camp to two of Schindler’s “brother industrialists” who were there to record what they were seeing. One held a small camera to collect evidence. They told Stern to pause and tie his shoe whenever there was something in the area he wanted to make sure they saw. “Yet he took his time with the tying so that they could look down and read the monumental fragments. Here were the gravestones of Bluma Gemeinerowa (1859--1927); of Matylde Liebeskind, deceased at the age of 90 in 1912; of Helena Wachsberg, who died in childbirth in 1911; of Rozia Groder, a thirteen-year-old who had passed on in 1931; of Sofia Rosner and Adolf Gottlieb, who had died in the reign of Franz Josef. Stern wanted them to see that the names of the honorable dead had been made into paving stones.”One detail about Schindler that was left out of the movie shows again how different he was from the other Germans. While some were busy doing as much damage as they could, he was the exact opposite. He not only saved all those he could, but he established a Jewish cemetery on consecrated ground for those who arrived dead from the Goleszow camp along with any who passed away in his factory from old age or illness. Why these things stood out for me so much even with all the rest, I can only guess. Repeated exposure to the stories of the death chambers, the cruelty, maybe that has desensitized me a bit. I would hope not and they can still bring a tear, but these two new details tugged at my heart more than anything else in the books but one.In the movie, the only spot of color is the little girl in red. She is seen walking along in one scene, then very shortly presented as a corpse atop a wheelbarrow of other dead bodies. In the book, however, that little girl seems to have survived, somehow mingling and hiding in plain sight until later taken in by a family and hidden. I don’t know the little girl’s eventual fate, but it was a relief to me not to read about her as another death among many.
Schindler's Ark is a brilliant book. It really shouldn't count as fiction, I suppose; one of the things that I admired about the book is that Keneally was scrupulous in his research. Even the dialogue, though obviously fiction, are constructed from conversations that actually took place. Keneally does not embellish, he does not fictionalize, he does not fudge details to be cleaner, sadder or happier, more romantic or more grim (which, though good, the movie definitely does). It is what it is -- the ghettos, the massacres, Oscar Schindler's own life and approach to his Jewish workers. Indeed, what is most intriguing is that Schindler was not, and was not written to be, a man torn, who reached some stunning conclusion that he must become a hero despite the risks. He just did it. He justacted: deftly, with wit and the enormous assets and influence that he wielded. He was interrogated and was released, as he figured he would be. He saved people and got away with it, as he assumed he would. And in saying this, I don't mean to downplay his heroism, and Keneally certainly doesn't downplay his heroism. In some ways, it is even more impressive. He just did what was right to do, using what resources he had, and he didn't question whether he could pull it off. His self-assuredness, even as the potential for catastrophic failure stalked him, was remarkable, and definitely saved his life and the lives of his workers. Keneally does not white-wash anything: not Schindler (brazen, a womanizer, best under pressure), not the violence, not the petty corruption that affected the List itself, not the machinery of war or the people who were within it. I also appreciated that Keneally researched and spent time crafting the other characters in the book, the Jewish workers and those in the ghettos. They lived as people with history and personality and while this seems like a small feat, it is one often overlooked in books that feature the "hero" saving the "victim." You see it too often in fiction about Africa (hello, Constant Gardner!) in which the white man is the hero and African characters are just tools that the author wields, to be saved by, to affect, to be interpreted by, the interloping hero. Keneally set out to write about Schindler and so would have, I think, more leeway had he fallen into this trap. But instead he sometimes moved outside of Schindler, not merely to describe the horrific violence, but to also give life to the people in that violence, the people who Schindler saved, but who also saved themselves -- and then, of course, who saved Schindler (in more ways than one; saving even his memory, in the end). It is hard to put my fingers on what was so spell-binding about this book. Keneally -- clearly a novelist who approaches the book like a novel -- has a matter-of-fact style; because I haven't read his other work (though now want to), it is hard to say if it is because of the subject matter or because that is how he always writes. But this style is what made the book poignant, I think. Keneally sugar-coated nothing, and he did not rely on flowery prose to beat into us the senseless violence, brutalities, and horror in which his characters were immersed. His meticulous research, pushed into novel form without losing its truthfulness, does more to convey Schindler as a man, and does more to preserve his legacy, than something romanticised would have been able to do. And the tenseness of each page, knowing that each person, each moment is balanced precariously on a precipice above the Holocaust itself, is conveyed best through Keneally's writing. I got the sense that Keneally took seriously the legacy with which he was trusted -- the legacy of Schindler, of course, but also of the people on his List and the people who never made it to his list -- and this was translated into the careful, unadorned, uncompromised book that he ultimately wrote. It is certainly one of the hardest Bookers to read, but it also is one of the best.
What do You think about Schindler's List (1994)?
Not an easy book to review or to categorize. Is it fiction, history, a bit of both. Keneally has clearly taken the historical account and stuck to it fairly closely, but has fictionalised the dialogue. It has also been overshadowed by Spileberg's remarkable film. Schindler did nothing remarkable before or after the war and without his wartime efforts would have been remembered as a womaniser, drinker and bankrupt. However his efforts to save the Jews who worked in his factory and his treatment of them compared with what was going on around him means he will always be remembered. The story behind the book; the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg to get the book written and the film made are also remarkable. Keneally went into Pfefferberg's shop to look at briefcases and was persuaded to write the book!The book is at times pedestrian, but there is no getting away from the horrors being described. It is the individual details that stand out; the boy who hid in the latrine, the girl in red, the casual cruelty of Goeth and the descriptions of some of the executions. It didn't have the gut wrenching effect of If This Is a Man / The Trucebut it was powerful enough. Schindler himself comes across as the larger than life character he clearly was and his character flaws even seemed to assist in what he was trying to do. His opposition to Nazism was clear from an early stage and the historical detail relating to his passing information about the camps to Jewish bodies monitoring the treatment of the Jews in germany and Poland, at quite an early stage. The most shocking part of the book for me was the epilogue. This describes Schindler in the 60s and 70s being hissed on the streets of Frankfurt, having stones thrown at him and workmen shouting he ought to have been burnt with the Jews. In typical Schindler fashion he was charged with assualt when he punched a factory worker who called him a Jew-kisser. Those reactions were really very shocking. A remarkable record which should be required reading.
—Paul
Schindlerjuden"Intrarea interzisa evreilor si cainilor" pagina 208 O_O"Fiindca pentru un mit nu se pune problema daca a fost sau nu adevarat, si nici daca ar trebui sa fie adevarat." 312desi eu as fi spus: "ci daca ar trebui sa fie adevarat", mai potrivit in context; asa si citisem pana a trebuit sa scriu aici ._.“In cele doua zile nesigure dintre declaratia de pace si punerea ei in aplicare, unul dintre detinuti, un bijutier pe nume Licht, mesterise un dar pentru Oskar. Ceva mult mai expresiv decat port-tigaretul pe care-l primise de ziua sa. Licht lucrase cu o infima cantitate din aurul atat de rar. Il primise de la batranul domn Jereth, de la fabrica de cutii. (...)Insa tot ceea ce aveau la indemana pentru a face un dar era metalul comun. Domnul Jereth fusese cel care sugerase o alta sursa, ceva mai bun. Deschise gura aratandu-si cei cativa dinti imbracati in aur. (...)Era desigur jertfa potrivita, iar Jereth a insistat. L-a pus pe un detinut care facea pe vremuri ceva practica dentara la Cracovia sa-i extraga lucrarea. Licht, bijutierul, a topit aurul si, pe data de 8 mai, la amiaza, a gravat o inscriptie ebraica in interiorul unui inel. Era un vers din Talmud, pe care Stern i-l citase lui Oskar in biroul de la Buchheister, in octombrie 1939:<>” 504“Ceea ce voia sa spuna Herr Direktor (Oskar Schindler) aproape literal era: >” 508“In 1949 i-au platit ex gratia cincisprezece mii de dolari si i-au dat o referinta (To whom it may concern), semnata de M. W. Beckelman, presedintele Comitetului Executiv, care suna asa:<>” 535Caracterizare: “... Oskar, cu tenul sau deschis si ochi albastri...” 518“... acelasi nestapanit Oskar. Vocea joasa, aproape un mormait, scandalosul lui farmec, comparat cu acela a lui Charles Boyer, setea nestapanita, toata supravietuisera...”
—Andreea
There's many words You could use to describe Oskar Schindler. womanizer, salesman, greedy businessman, a War profiteering man but also a very generous man.But the word I'd choose is Hero.All of these words described Oskar He was far from a saint. But from 1939-45 he saved over 1,100 people from the holocaust and the evils of the Nazi. He wasn't Superman, he couldn't save everyone. But he saved who he could. Under literal life and death circumstances, he spent all of his money to save his worker's lives. And would face scrutiny and jeering in the streets of Germany for the rest of his life for doing it. Oskar started out more or less just wanting to make a lot of money off the war, as it was cheaper to hire a Jew, than a Polish person, under Reich rules. But as he saw what was happening, how evil and cruel the Nazis were, He changed. He started hiring as many people as possible, also if one of his worker's were taken, he fought as hard as he could to get them back, usually at great risk and expense to himself. While reading this it was difficult, because all of this really happened. Yes, the dialog wasn't a100 percent account. But the events of this book were. These people really died. All of this pure evil happened, but these people were really saved. Some people that read this book will just focus on Schindler's faults, and miss what he did. I choose not to be that way. Thank You, Oskar for saving those people.
—Patrick
