SCHINDLER’S LIST Swindler’s List AntiPolish Scene Loshitzky

Spielberg’s Holocaust: Critical Perspectives on Schindler’s List, by Yosefa Loshitzky (Editor). 1997

Schindler’s List is the Crown Jewel of Holocaust Supremacism. African Americans, Poles, and All Other Victims of Genocide, Are Slighted. Polonophobic Innuendo

HOLOCAUST AND HOLLYWOOD

By way of introduction, Yosefa Loshitzky uses the term Schindlermania (p. 6) and then calls attention to the obvious, “Schindler’s List was the ‘jewel in the crown’ in ‘the year of the Holocaust,’ conforming once again the power of popular cinema to shape collective memory and to generate topics for popular conversation.” (p. 6). Owing precisely to its popularity and moral prestige, Schindler’s List must be analyzed for its injustices to non-Jews, and that is the focus of my review.

GERMAN GUILT DIFFUSION AND SCHINDLER’S LIST

This book does not address the question of minimizing German guilt for the German-made Holocaust, but it still shows loud and clear. Here we have such a big-deal movie about a German rescuer of Jews, and no such comparable movie about, for example, the many Polish rescuers of Jews, all of whom operated in conditions that were infinitely more difficult than that of Oskar Schindler.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN LEADERS POINT OUT: “IT’S ABOUT THE JEWS AND ALWAYS ABOUT THE JEWS”

With reference to Minister Louis Farakhan and Khalil Abdul Muhammad, Loshitzky writes, “After a visit to the Holocaust Museum in Washington [USHMM] in September 1994, Khalil Muhammad stated, ‘We were given swindler’s list.’ These ‘witticisms’ give voice to African Americans’ frustration with attempts to frame their victimhood through the experience of other groups. For African Americans such efforts are ways of silencing their own victimhood and making it invisible.” (pp. 6-7). No kidding. And it is ALL non-Jewish genocides, and not only that of the African Americans, that are effectively silenced and made invisible. [Well, almost. It may not exactly be a zero sum game (100%/0%), but it is close enough (likely 95%/5%)].

In addition, the quoted statement that includes “with attempts to frame their [African Americans’] victimhood through the experience of other groups” calls the bluff on the Orwellian-redefined “universal” Holocaust, and its self-appointed presumed role as a “gateway” through which all other genocides must be understood.

EFFECTIVELY: “IF IT BENEFITS THE JEWS, IT’S GOOD, AND NO ONE ELSE REALLY MATTERS”

Loshitzky then quotes Louis Farakhan, “Why is it that we have so many stories about a Jewish Holocaust?…Why is it that we can see a Schindler’s List but there is nothing that is said of the Holocaust to black people, which was 100 times worse than the Holocaust of the Jews.” (p. 16). Good question. Let us take this further:

THOUGH THE SETTING IS GERMAN OCCUPIED POLAND, THE POLOKAUST DOESN’T EXIST, AND EVEN INDIVIDUAL POLES ARE ALMOST INVISIBLE!

Author Jeffrey Shandler comments, “Noting the paucity of Polish characters in the film, columnist Agnieszka Wroblewska comments that, ‘it’s not an anti-Polish film: Poland basically does not exist in it.’ Nonetheless, she argues, the film ‘requires a touch of balance,’ as it fails to allude to Polish victims of Nazis or to those Poles who, like Schindler, helped save Jewish lives.” (P. 161). Again, “If it benefits the Jews…”

Author Judith E. Doneson makes the foregoing conclusion even stronger, “Indeed, in Krakow, a major city in Poland, we barely see a Pole. Certainly, we meet no Polish characters of any consequence: There is the little girl who cries ‘good-bye, Jews”, a young boy who, when a train passes en route to Auschwitz, mimes the slashing of his throat, indicating the Jews will die: and the scene in church with the religious Poles praying while Jews carry out black market activities.” (p. 146).

HATE SPEECH IN CINEMA: AN INVENTED POLISH GIRL GIVING A SARCASTIC FAREWELL TO THE DYING JEWS

This book fails to address an important issue. Contrary to Agnieszka Wroblewska, Schindler’s List most definitely is anti-Polish. The scene of the Polish girl cheering the impending Jewish deaths is a LIE (well, 99% lie). Fact is, according to the vast majority of Jewish testimonies, Poles were, with very rare exceptions, sympathetic to the Jews who were about to be put to death.

So why did Steven Spielberg include the anti-Polish scene? Could it be a projection of his Jewish Polonophobic prejudices onto the character of an innocent little Polish girl?

We are told, over and over again, that Hollywood is careful about not promoting prejudices against any group. Really? Just think of the massive audience that was exposed to this hateful image of Poles. A company would have paid big bucks for a few seconds of positive advertising publicity, about its product, on Schindler’s List, that was instead given, for free, to the below-the-belt hit “ad” on Poles.