Schindler's List

"One who saves one's life save the world entire." - Itzhak Stern

Directed by Steven Spielberg
Written by Thomas Keneally(novel)and Steven Zaillian
Liam Neeson - Oskar Schindler
Ben Kingsley - Itzhak Stern
Ralph Fiennes - Amon Goeth
Caroline Goodall - Emilie Schindler
Jonathan Sagall - Poldek Pfefferberg (as Jonathan Sagalle)
Embeth Davidtz - Helen Hirsch

See the full Schindler's List.

Oscar Schindler was a sentimentalist who loved the simplicity of doing good. A man full of flaws like the rest of us. An ordinary man who even in the worst of circumstances did extraordinary things, matched by no one. The unlikeliest of all role models who started by earning millions as a war profiteer and ended by spending his last pfennig and risking his life to save his 1300 Schindlerjews.

He was an alcoholic and a shameless womanisor of the worst sort, no matter that he was no saint and left his wife - what matters to his Jews is that he surfaced from the chaos of madness and risked everything for them. And generations will remember him for what he did. No matter how many businesses Schindler failed in, he was a success in life ..

This man got me thinking again. Does the end justify the process? Is bibery, acts of unrighteousness becomes justified because of the goodness that stems and was achieved by these acts?

In 1963, Schindler was honored at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, or "righteous Gentiles", an honor awarded by Israel to non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust. Schindler was the first former member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party of Hitler to be so recognized by the planting of a tree in his name at the Yad Vashem Memorial. Schindler was also honoured with the German Federal Cross of Merit and with the Papal Order of St. Sylvester during the 1960s. The Order of St. Sylvester was personally awarded to him by Paul VI in 1968.

Schindler was honored because of what he achieved and the sense of humanity he had during a time and place where the elementary sense of decency and humanity was not believed in. The council of these awards considered all these elements and chose to honor him for what he did for these Jews whom he did not know. Or did they chose to honor him and overlook the method that he used and the kind of lifestyle he led, not in flavor of what he did to accomplished the good works but to recognise and focusing on the good works he achieved?

The best case would be to do right at all times to achieve the end. But if it comes to the need to work around the system to do good, should it be done? For me, I need to consider...