Two candles are lit as a Jewish family celebrates the beginning of the Sabbath, the candles continue to burn as the wax gets shorter, the color and the mood of the film gets darker, the candle burns out and with it the color of the film, our fear of what is to come begins.

One can read every book about the Holocaust and be a total expert on the history of it, but that person will never understand the true meaning of what the Holocaust was. Steven Spielberg’s film “Schindler’s List” gets closer to the truth and especially the horror of the Holocaust better than any book or movie ever could. “Schindler’s List” is a story about a man by the name of Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), who played an important role in the Holocaust.

Schindler is a con man, a member of the Nazi party, a businessman and a womanizer but in spite of it all, he is a hero. We first meet Schindler at a nightclub where he is trying to win over the respect of a high-ranking Nazi official so he can secure a contract; he does so with ease. With the signed contract in hand, Schindler will open a factory. There he will make shells for bombs with a Jewish workforce for the German army. Schindler was not required to pay the Jews, which allowed him to maximize his profit. Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), a Jewish accountant, was hired by Schindler to recruit the Jewish workforce. Stern finds many Jewish workers for Schindler. Workers at the factory are considered “essential” – meaning they are saved from being taken to death camps. Stern uses this power simply to save people, hiring people that the Nazis would deem worthless. Schindler starts out feeling indifferent to the treatment of Jews; he sees them only as a way to make money. But as he gets to know the people he has hired, his view starts to change. Fear is contagious, but courage is too. Stern is a man that shows a lot of courage in the face of the overwhelming evil of the Holocaust. Stern’s courage brings out the morals of Schindler. It gives him the courage to save Jews; he simply cannot stand and watch people he knows be sent to their death.

“Schindler’s List” has two main characters, both are who they are because of the the role they play in the war. One being Schindler and the other being Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes who plays Voldemort in the Harry Potter movies), a sadistic murdering psychopath. Goeth represents the sickening evil of the Nazi party. There are many similarities between Goeth and Schindler such as greed and self-centeredness but unlike Schindler, Goeth shows no sign of goodness.

“Schindler’s List” is shot in black and white to emphasize the grittiness of World War II era and to highlight key elements of other scenes. Schindler witnesses a little girl in a red coat from atop a hill as does the audience because her coat is the only color we see. She walks around as if invisible, as if she is floating amongst the crowd unnoticed by the Nazis. Her red coat symbolizes innocence, innocence of the Jewish people that died in the Holocaust, but it also signifies the blood on the Nazi’s hands.

This movie is not easy to watch. It is very graphic and violent, but I think it is very important to watch because the best way to not repeat something like the Holocaust again is to learn about it. Learn about the courage of Schindler; the courage that would go on to save more than 1,200 Jewish people. I have watched this movie four times now and each time I have viewed it, I think about myself and if I would have the courage like Schindler did, even in the face of overwhelming evil.