Pasted below is my transcript of passages from the book "Schindler's List," by Thomas Keneally. I had only seen the movie and had not read the book and I was shocked to learn that SCHINDLER HAD ARMED AND TRAINED HIS PRISONERS so that they could protect themselves should his carefully constructed order collapse in the final days of the war. It's not surprising that Hollywood left this out, but I think it is part of the story that needs visibility. So here it is:

Chapter 35

“During the winter, Oskar [Schindler] built up an independent arsenal. Again there were legends: Some say that the weapons were bought at the end of winter from the Czech underground. But Oskar had been an obvious National Socialist in 1938 and 1938 and may have been wary of dealing with the Czechs. Most of the weapons, in any case, came from a flawless source, from Oberstrumbannfuhrer Rasch, SS and police chief of Moravia. The small cache included carbines and automatic weapons, some pistols, some hand grenades. Oskar would later describe the transaction offhandedly. He acquired the arms, he would say, ‘under the pretense of protecting my factory, for the price of the gift of a brilliant ring to his [Rach’s] wife.’

“Once Oskar had the weapons, he appointed Uri Bejski, brother of the rubber stamp maker, keeper of the arsenal…

“Having selected the small body of prisoners for training, Uri took one at a time into Salpeter’s storehouse to teach them the mechanisms of the Gewehr 41 W’s. Three commando squads of five men each had been formed. Some of Bejski’s trainees were boys like Lutek Feigenbaum. Others were Polish vetrans such as Pffefferberg and those other prisoners whom the Schindler prisoners called the ‘Budzyn people.’

“The Budzyn people were Jewish officers and men of the Polish Army. They had lived through the liquidation of the Budzyn labor camp…A number of them took private lessons on Uri Bejski’s automatics, for in the Polish Army of the Thirties they had never held such sophisticated weapons.

Chapter 38

“In the hours following Oskar’s speech the SS garrison began to desert. Inside the factory, the commandos selected from the Budzyn people and from other elements of the prison population had already been issued the weapons that Oskar had provided. It was hoped to disarm the SS rather than wage a ritual battle with them. It would not be wise, as Oskar had explained, to attract any retreating and embittered units to the gate. But unless something as outlandish as a treaty was arrived at, the towers would ultimately have to be stormed with grenades.

“The truth, however, was that the commandos had only to formalize the disarming described in Oskar’s speech. The guards at the main gate gave up their weapons almost gratefully.

What a great gift for the anti who thinks he knows everything.I thinki'll buy a few copies for the people I know who are sittin on the fence of gun control.
  When I saw this movie there where times that I cried and times I almost threw up.
  My wife who said she could see the sense in some gun control,has never said anything sense.
Other than criminal,mental types.

I still find it so hard to believe that the Jews were so easy to herd into the slaughterhouse.
Then again, people will give up a lot for percieved safety.
It does give you hope to see stories like this, and the Warsaw Ghetto.

I knew that Spielberg is an anti gun. He comissioned in Italy two 12 gauge, handmade, twin shooting/hunting rifles with beautiful metal carvings and wood for the modest amount of 30,000 US $... evidently guns are not for common people like you and me.
Baruch hashem, now jews are not so easily slaughterable... yesterday I saw a documentary about IIAF F-15 fighter pilots on Discovery channels. Things have changed since 1939...

Spielberg is himself a JEW. Hardley an accurate assessment of the story. He made the movie so that you would hate Germans.

He (Schindler) isn't considered a hero in Isreal for nothing.

Really? I saw the movie and yes, I hate nazists, from Germany or from Ohio.
But I DON'T hate Germans.
There's a difference.

i too saw schindler's list several times.  i did not come out hating the germans. i have many german friends (and one ex-girlfriend) and none are even close to being nazi's.  if anything i saw the alarming danger of not being armed!  in that way the 'list' is pro-gun.  seeing the movie mad me furious that such a one sided travesty could occurr.

the steps taken by the nsdap were the militarization of the police followed by laws to disarm and dis-empower the jewish people.  hello? anyone awake here?  the final solution did not get certified until 1941, by then alot already were in k.z.'s or ghettos.  they were lied to from beginning to end.  (ironically it was the persecution of the jews that was the one definate reason hitler lost the war.  even with all the other problems - had he courted the jewish scientific intelligencia - he would of have nukes and other weapons first.  not to mention atleast 1 million good jewish germans for the army and more troops freed up from the kz's to fight the bolshevicks)

if anything i saw that both sides saw the horror of what was happening and the madness that overcomes you when you destroy your fellow man.  you cannot engage in such a soul crushing activity and remain truley human and balanced.

many crack ss men killed themselves on the eastern front as a result of the works of the murderous einsatzgruppen.  to be a moral warrior is one thing.  to be a cowardly killer if innocents is another all together.

perhaps the arming of the workers was cut from the script for time considerations?  how can anyone really say?  

steve

Steve, good point about the troops! However, the one thing that sealed Germany's fate was the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Soviets fielded an Army so large that Germany, with all her technical superiority, could not hope to defeat. Combine that with the supply distances, and amount of territory to occupy, and Germany had zero chance of success.

Melon, I don't think even the Red Army could have coped with nukes and jet fighters.  They probably would have had these much sooner if they weren't destroying and alienating the jews.  After all, Einstien and friends would have still been there.

Yeah, that could be true, AR15. In a way, it's a good thing Hitler hated the Jews, ain't it? It's a god-awful shame so many had to pay for it, though.

I believe the six million died in exchange for Israel.
Western Europe & the US gave Palestine to the remmants of the Jews because they were guilty of ignoring the Holocaust. Too bad so many American Hebrews have not learned and will gladly give up their 2nd Ammendment rights only 60 years after Hitler disarmed them in the 1930's.

"All of your Ohio nazis are belong to us!"

Yep, I had heard that. Anytime I see somebody watching, mentioning, or talking about that movie, i bring it up. Its sad that today's Jews  support pretty much everything Hitler supported, including gun control. Sad that people forget history so easily.

Elwood Blues: Illinois Nazis.
Jake Blues: I hate Illinois Nazis.
[url]http://www.moviewavs.com/Movies/Blues_Brothers/illnazis.wav[/url]

Interesting transcript, Liberty Ship. Thanks for posting it. Yeah, It is to bad Spielberg did not include that in his film. Schindler's List is a masterpiece. The most powerfull movie I have ever seen. I agree this was not meant to be anti-German in any way. It is, however, a brilliant illustration on how absolute power corrupts absolutely. The unspeakable horror of the Holocaust is testament to the fact that evil men need to die, or at least, be brought to justice. It humbles me to imagine what these people had to endure solely for the fact they wore the Star of David  instead of a crucifix. It is also another reminder that if there is such a thing as a "right" war to fight, this was it.

From PaoloAR15 -



Yes, Blessed be the name (of the Lord), that the Jews were returned to the Holy Land in 1948, and received their ancient and holy capital city back in 1967.

In the annals of human history, such a thing has never occurred.

It would be as if the Algonquin Indians suddenly showed up in New York State, seized it and made it their tribal lands again, with Albany as their capital city!  

Even that would not be a precise match since the Algonquins have only been dispossessed of New York State since the late Seventeenth Century and the Jews habe been denied theirs since the late First Century period.

But you catch my drift, [i]capisce?[/i]

Eric The Hun[>]:)]

Mr. Burns:  "I want you to do to me what Spielburg did for Schindler!"

Senor Spielbergo:  "Schindler es bueno, Mr. Burns es diablo."

Mr. Burns:  "We both made shells for the Nazi's, but mine worked damnit!!!!"

Ah, I love the Simpsons, it's a cartoon and it's the most realistic show on.  What would life be without them?

Just a point:  I'm really tired of the "six million" statistic.  Yes, six million people died in the camps just because they were Jewish.  But another six million died in those same camps because they were Russian, homosexual, gypsies, communists, and whatever else the bastards wanted to kill them for.

Twelve million, not six.  Don't reduce the horror of what happened then by a factor of two.  Next time the victims might be us.

It's a little more than just another 6 million. Add in all the civilians killed by Nazi's in Poland, France, England, Eastern Europe, etc etc. The grand total including jews, gypsies, non jew civilians and soldiers is something like 25 million.

How am I funny?  Do I [i]amuse[/i] you?  Make you laugh, no splain it to me, cause I wanna understand this shit, I am funny, funny how?

Wait, er wrong movie...

Hitlers blunders are what cost the Germans Operation Barbossa.  Following the same mistake as Napolean when France invaded Russia by not starting their invasion early enough in the year to beat the winter.  Secondly, German forces were within Moscows reach when Hitler decided to complete the conquor of the southern part of the Soviet Union.  Had he not delayed I think the Germans could easily have taken Moscow.  Even after Stalingrad the Germans had a good chance but Hitler threw away many good units in holding locations to the last man that were really not necessary.



while technically you are correct, you forget that a major part of Hitlers ability to win over the German people was to rally them all against a common enemy-  the Jews.  Look at how Bushs Presidential ratings went up during operation Desert Storm.



The horror to me is not so much that six million Jews died but rather the cold and systematic way in which the Germans did it.

I apologize with the Ohio nazists. I meant Illinois nazists (thank you for quoting "Blue Brothers" and correct my mistake...)

[;)]

What?  You take issue with the method of murder over the murder itself?  Form over substance?  I must be reading this wrong.

In a sense yes.  Do people get upset and still remember the 35-135,000 men, women, and children killed in the firebombing of Dresden. How much do we still talk about the 1.5million Armenians massacred by the Turks? Or on a smaller scale, when the Soviets shot down that South Korean airliner---oops, sorry, now all is forgiven.  People forget about most things overtime unless it directly affected you. So why do we keep remembering the holocaust?   In my opinon it not only has to do with for the most part singling out one race but in the way in which it was carried out.

OK, so now we've gone from a form over substance arguement to a justifying bad behavior with examples of [i]other[/i] bad behavior argument.  Because other examples of mass murder are not "remembered" to your liking, the Holocaust is somehow dumbed-down on your scale of relevance?  Although I understand and agree with your examples of other murder not remembered, that has nothing to do with the "horror" exacted on the Jews by the Nazis.  

No flame, I might be reading you wrong.

Thanks, Steve in Va.  I happen to think that the Rape of Nanking is underplayed, but that does not detract from the Holocost, or Cambodia, etc.

Regarding the firebombing of Dresden, I think we have to take into account the difference between total war, as in Sherman in burning Atlanta, and genocide (I have recently learned a new and more appropriate word: Democide.)  Bombing Dresden, Hiroshima, etc., while horrible, had a military objective in mind.  That objective was to win and end a conflict by breaking the NATION's will to fight.  That is differend from personally inflicted acts of murder, sadism, and cruelty such as we saw performed by the Japanese and Germans in WWII.

I think we are misunderstanding each other Steve.  I do not disagree about the horrors of the holocaust.  My point is why it is remembered so vividly.  My initial response was to address this statement:



Which is a valid question and I tried to think of a reason why people  remember the holocaust over other acts of genocide/murder that have taken place in history.  You may say it is the numbers killed but I have another theory:
If you ask Joe Blow on the street to describe what happened in the holocaust most people would recite the train rides, the showers, and finally the ovens. This is what people remember.  Ask them about the Einsatzgruppen sweeps starting with operation Barbossa.  Few people would know of the many Jews shot while lying on top of other dead Jews in mass graves or the mobile gas units that came out in the second sweep.  What people remember is the concentration camps.  As Raul Hilberg says in his book, "Destruction of the European Jews", "Never before in history had people been killed on an assemblyline basis"  This statement is the horror which is the holocaust.
So based on this I would say few remember the rape of Nanking or the Armenian massacre for this very reason.

Oh BTW,
From John Black "Workers World"
"Dresden was a center of cultural and architectural wonders, including the famous Zwinger Museum and Palace and the cathedral, the Frauenkirche. There were no military objectives of any consequence in the city--its destruction could do nothing to weaken the Nazi war machine. U.S. and British air warfare had left Dresden intact until that point."
So what was the point in bombing it?  To slow our allies the Russians down.

Thanx for clarifying- I thought I might have been reading your response wrong- that's why I qualified my replies.  Does make you think- I enjoyed the discussion.

Libery Ship:  I totally agree with your distiction regarding an act of war and genocide.