Entry Four: The Problem Deepens

      Quite a bit has happened as Schindler's List continues to progress. The Nazis had began to implement concentration camps throughout eastern Europe and had deemed it more "efficient" to phase out ghettos and transition into concentration and labor camps.The Kracow ghetto was converted into the Plaszow-Kracow labor camp. This would make it challenging for Oskar Schindler to continue to hold his grip on keeping his Jews safe as regulation strengthened in the area.
     Amon Goeth, as previously noted, was in charge of the Kracow camp. Goeth had no control on himself and would often walk out to his balcony and randomly shoot prisoners. If one little mistake was made by his servants, they would quickly be executed. Goeth wanted as much power as possible, and attempted to bring the Emalia factory into the camp. Schindler had to really work Goeth to keep his factory outside of the camp, as it would mean certain death for his workers. Schindler had found Goeth's weak spot. Schindler played nice with the general and brought him alcohol. The two had many meetings together, this resulted in the approval of Schindler by Goeth to keep his plant. Schindler used this tactic on many other Nazi officials, and this would eventually yield him a large amount of power to be used for the future. Schindler was able to keep his Emalia factory out of the camp and had saved many Jews from potential death in the concentration camps.
    Emalia had become a very well-known location to the Jews. They had envied to be allowed into the factory. Schindler had set up a separate camp to house all of his workers and would spend a large sum of money to provide adequate food for the prisoners. He would allow the workers smoke and have relationships, something that was highly banned inside camps. Occasionally the SS would come and inspect the factory to make sure that the typical rules were being practiced. Schindler would then ring a bell which would alert all the workers to cover up everything that had been illegal. Schindler had put his life on the line to put all of these measures in. This seemed to many Jews a save haven, it was considered a paradise.
      Unfortunately, this paradise would not be able to be kept forever. Amon Goeth had been arrested by the Gestapo, and the camp was about to be shut down. This meant that all workers at Emalia would be sent directly to Auschwitz. The factory would be shut down. Schindler thought that this went against his values, he could just not give up on the Jews. Schindler went out on a mission to try to place a factory somewhere else. He had found a perfect location in a nearby city, but it would later be bombed out. Finally, Schindler thought he found a perfect location in Czechoslovakia and after some very strong resistance, he had been able to put the factory in. Schindler payed an enormous amount of money to pay for the factory and allow the Jews to work there, but he found that it was worth it. Schindler wrote up his list of people he would want to work in his factory, and in result, save. This would become known as Schindler's List.
      Schindler's List has brought on a journey of emotions and has really touched me. I feel that it is the responsibility of the author, Thomas Keneally, to invoke these emotions on such a topic. It still completely confuses me as to why humans could ever commit acts as were done by Amon Goeth and other Nazi officials. Amon Goeth would just shoot prisoners whenever he felt like it, without any restraint. It is terrible to see such things occur, and the author properly creates the anger and sadness that should accompany this sort of occurrence. It is very interesting to see that this story comes from another perspective of the holocaust that people typically do not get to see, a heroic christian during the holocaust. Many people believe that everyone was a Nazi during the holocaust, and many were, but there were also an amount of people who had worked to save the Jews. Schindler's List has been an eye-opening experience that has really touched me, and I am interested to see how it ends.

You may view an Xtranormal video showing the scene when Oskar talks to Goeth about relocating his Emalia factory here.

I also created a video providing an overview of the characters in Schindler's List: