Who Is Oscar Schindler A Hero

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In Schindler’s List by Steven Spielberg, Oscar Schindler is a man who saw his chance to become rich during WWII. Seeing the opportunity that war gave him, Schindler opened a factory in Nazi occupied Krakow and “employ Jews at starvation wages.” (Ebert 1993) Schindler started his journey coming to Poland trying to get rich, but leave saving hundreds of Jews Why did Schindler change from being a selfish man who is only out for profit to a man deserving of the ring inscribed “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire?” During the course of his journey, Schindler sees the atrocities and brutality that the Nazi forced upon the Jews of Krakow that made him change. A womanizer, war profiteer, and a Nazi party member, Schindler is a self-centered…show more content…
What caused him to give up his steamer trunks full of money in order to save his workers life when they worth so much little to him at the start? Schindler’s change of heart began when he witnessed the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto in 1943. On horseback, he witnesses as a young girl walking past the chaos and madness around her, not seeing anything, not saying anything, not thinking anything. As people are being gunned down and lined up to be executed, Schindler realizes that the brutality of the Nazis are occurring right in front of this girl. Red, the color of blood and also the color of the coat that she wears is a symbol that not just represent her innocence, but also the innocence of the Jews being slaughtered. Seeing the girl and the atrocities in the ghetto traumatizes Schindler. He realizes that the human beings, the Jewish people he ignored before was finally worth caring about. When Schindler returned to his factory, he looked at his desolate factory through the window of his office. The silence he found is a deadly silence, a product he would never expect his factory to ever make. Not only does Schindler changed because of the atrocities he witnessed, but also because of the people around him. A person that influences Schindler’s views was Elsa Krause, or Regina Perlman, a Jewish woman who attempted to persuade Schindler to save her parents. Schindler at first was enraged at the fact that the Jews considered his factories as a safe haven and sent Perlman out of his office saying “You will not entrap me, Miss Krause,” thinking that helping her will ruin his image. Perlman was disheartened at the fact Schindler refused, but later sees her parents being brought to Schindler’s factory. This event marked the beginning of where Schindler begins to protect the lives of his Jewish workers. Hearing Perlman saying that the factory is a safe haven, Schindler begins to notice
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