"SCHINDLER'S LIST" ON PRIME-TIME TELEVISION

Victor Bloom MD

Spielberg's classic film on the Holocaust during World War II came to the attention of more people in one night than all those who saw the film in movie theaters a few years ago. Experts wondered what would be the impact of this unprecedented historical event when it comes into a person's home. Perhaps it comes more directly and personally than in a large theater with lots of people and a big silver screen. One wonders how much, at this late date, the impact of this attempt at genocide is felt.

Spielberg himself advised parents at the beginning of the presentation that this was no film for small children. His own small children had not seen it. But he would want them to see it when they were of high school age. He would want them to know what happened.

What happened was that the leaders of Nazi Germany, the Third Reich, decided on a plan. It was called, "The Final Solution". The final solution to what? The Jewish question. What was the Jewish Question? The question seemed to be to those in power, should the Jewish race be allowed to exist? The Nazi propaganda machine, in the wake of the Versailles treaty after World War I, in which Germany was defeated and rendered hopelessly abject, whipped up a fury of antiSemitism, in which the Jew was stereotyped as genetically corrupt and in league with the devil. It was considered a defective race, in comparison with the Aryan race, which built on the German myth of the 'volk', wholesome and handsome blonde-haired men and women who were going to save the world and be the hope of the future.

The Nazis fomented racial theories built on fantastic stereotypes. The Aryans were the "Master Race" and the Jews were consigned as defectives for elimination, extermination, like vermin, along with gypsies, mental defectives, homosexuals, communists and intellectuals that were considered a threat to The New Order. These included clergy who spoke against the Nazi regime and Slavs who were also considered inferior. Synagogues and books were burned.

The movie showed Jews being kicked out of their homes while Nazi party officials and friends occupied them. They were herded with their meager possessions and marched to ghettos, where they were housed in crowded and unsanitary conditions. They were not allowed to do business and their children were not allowed to go to school. German Jews who had considered themselves German citizens and valued members of the community were no exception.

The movie showed these forced marches and mass migrations and also individuals and how they reacted. Mostly they reacted in stunned disbelief. They were completed uprooted and at the mercy of the authorities. They did not know what would happen to them. They could not imagine that they would be herded into slave labor camps or exterminated in the death camps. Such outcomes were inimaginable, unthinkable, and yet the unthinkable happened.

Six million Jews were systematically slaughtered. The Germans kept good records, so there is little argument about the numbers, except by a few mad revisionists who said the whole thing didn't happen, that the Holocaust was a trumped up non-event by cunning and powerful Jewish propagandists. There are those who want to believe it never happened.

The movie showed the degrees to which some Nazis exploited the situation to party and make money. It also showed random acts of violence and sadism. It showed many Nazi officers who were seemingly without guilt, utterly cold and remorseless, without feeling for their fellow man. Anyone could be shot or beaten at any time for any reason. This included old men and women as well as children. It is a wonder that the Nazi high command could have gay, drunken parties and orgies and celebrate holidays and birthdays. It is a wonder that so many human beings could have been so inhumane.

The movie played for three and a half hours with no commercial interruption. The Ford Motor Company is to be commended for enabling this presentation in so sensitive and tactful a way.

One can only wonder how this vivid and gripping dramatic pictorialization of one of the most horrible events of human history was received by the average television viewer. Certainly the darker side of man's potential was depicted in searing detail.

One is impressed, however, that in spite of everything, it was a story of humanity and hope, of survival and creativity. This interesting fact emerged at the end. There were now 6000 survivors of "Shindler's Jews" from the original eleven hundred at the end of the war. This is two thousand more than all the Jews now living in Poland.

This fact of survival in the face of the darkest horror of human history shows the truth of the Talmudic saying, that whosoever saves the life of one human being, saves the world, entire.

Dr. Bloom is Clinical Associate Professor of Wayne State's Medical School Department of Psychiatry and in private practive in Grosse Pointe Park.