Film Lesson: Schindler's List

"Schindler's List" showed the holocaust in a negative way. It showed the slaughter of Jews in the Krakow ghetto and all the death in them. There is one person who did something to save the Jews. He was named Schindler and he was a Nazi, which is weird since Nazis don't usually try and save the Jewish people in the Holocaust. A reason he could have done this is because he saw the Jews being killed in Krakow. This was done so a new concentration camp called Plaszow could be made. Schindler tries and sets up a factory by collaborating with the Jewish businesses. The Jews could work in the factory and they would not be sent off to concentration camps because Schindler bribed the Nazis. The Jews were cheap labor and they helped produce products cheaply. In the concentration camps, dead bodies were burnt in ovens and their ashes would rain down on the camp. People were often worked or tortured to death.

I think that the killings in Krakow was the most powerful scene for me because many people were killed and there was dead bodies everywhere. The Jews couldn't do much about it and the Nazis wouldn't listen to them. I remember I watched "Schindler's List" back in 8th grade and I still remember the children hiding everywhere and when they sprayed the trains with a hose. I guess those scenes will stay with me because I could actually remember them.

Film Lesson: Night and Fog

"Night and Fog" is a documentary film on Nazi concentration camps. I think that the film was pretty powerful. It showed how extreme the prejudice towards Jews was. I was surprised at how much death there was. The bodies were cremated in ovens and bulldozed into pits. There were piles and piles of dead people. In one scene, there were severed heads and the accompanying bodies nearby. There were many items taken from the Jews which helped show how many people were there before. The Jews were starving and they even ate from the same bowl. I think that the scenes in "Night and Fog" were more brutal than the scenes in "Schindler's List". "Night and Fog" used more scenes with shock value while "Schindler's List" used dialogue to instill emotion. I think this helped illustrate the holocaust better because it showed what happened then and how it is now. The Hollywood version was acted out while the things in the documentary were real. The documentary showed the places where the events took place in present time in color and the events in the past were in black and white. The Hollywood version only used black and white.