"Schindler's List" a timeless movie, here is an original document from Schindler..

I posted this on Facebook so I might as well post it here. People found it interesting.

I watched "Schindler's List" last night, I hadn't seen it since the 1990s. When I watched the movie again after many years it was even more devastating than usual for me because I have children of my own now. Really left me pulverized.

I came upon this letter and thought it would be interesting for you to see. Normally I wouldn't post a Nazi document but I find this letter fascinating. Those of you who have seen "Schindler's List" will appreciate this key letter in the history of the Holocaust. The letter, signed by German Industrialist Oskar Schindler in blue, dated Aug. 22, 1944, describes permission to move Emalia, his enamelware factory at 4 Lipowa Street, WORKERS INCLUDED, out of Krakow, Poland, to his home town of Brünnlitz in Czechoslovakia, a move that cost him his personal fortune in bribes but allowed him to save his 1,200 Schindlerjuden from being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Schindler employed the workers under an arrangement with SS Commander Amon Goeth, who ran a work camp at nearby Plaszow. In the summer of 1944, Goeth’s secretary alerted Schindler that the Nazis would be closing all factories not directly related to the war effort. The Jews would be transported by train to a concentration camp. Schindler, through bribery and leveraging relationships, received permission from the head of the armaments command to focus on producing arms and move the factory.

The letter, translated from German, gives permission to send Adam Dziedzic, a factory employee receiving a contract “for unloading and assembling war-necessary machinery,” to Czechoslovakia under the order of the general military command in Krakow.

The famous list naming workers to relocate was developed that fall. We know if Schindler had not gotten such permission to move his factory, there would have been no Schindler’s list.

What made Schindler do this? He originally hired Jewish workers because they came cheaper than Polish workers. For him, that was just good business sense. But... What made him spend every dime he had to save "his Jews"? No one will ever really know. Steven Spielberg doesn't know, the Schindlerjuden didn't know.

Oscar Schindler is the only member of the Nazi Party to be buried in Israel. In fact, it was his wish. His grave is in the Catholic Franciscans' cemetery, Mount Zion, Jerusalem. On his grave is written: Righteous Among the Nations (Hebrew: חֲסִידִי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם‎, khasidi umót ha'olám).

Below pic: In 1946, Oskar Schindler (second from the right) poses with a group of Jews he rescued. Among those pictured are: Manci Rosner, Edmund Horowitz, Ludmila Pfefferberg-Page, Halinka Horowitz, and Olek Rosner. If you've seen "Schindler's List" you know those names well, all featured in the book and the movie..

 

Don't watch it on Netflix, they really screwed it up, they forgot to add the printed paragraphs of explanation before some of the key scenes. A really bad error. When Mr. Spielberg finds out about it he will be truly peed off.

 

Well, the lab struck a print from the neg that had no writing on it. The subtitles should have been reimposed in a mastering stage but either no one was aware of them or they just didn't care.

 

I appreciate the link. Dispels any doubts that Schindler only decided at the last minute to save his slave labor workers because Germany was losing the war and he just wanted to save his skin, without being arrested and executed. A fascinating man. A true hero. חֲסִידִי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם‎

 

I want to see the 40 minutes he cut out of the movie for time. How long do we have to wait? Probably forever.

 

Saw SHOAH in the theatre, two days. An experience. But once was enough..

 

I remember NBC showed it completely uncut, no words bleeped, nothing smeared on the screen. First and only time that's happened with a film like that.

I watched some of it just to see if it would happen. It did. Spielberg said "Uncut or no airing."