Bokrecension: Schindlers List av Thomas Keneally

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The book Schindlers list is a documentary about the treatment of Jews during the Second World War, inspired by Leopold Pfferberg, which was a Jew living in Germany during the Second World War.

I have chosen to analyze Oscar Schindler, due to his important role in the story but also because he is a complex person, which makes him interesting. Oscar’s look is described in the story, but no more than as an ideal for how an aryan should look like. So therefore his looks has been influenced by my prejudices on how an aryan looks like. I see him as a tall, handsome and a pretty muscular guy. I think he is handsome due to the ease he seems to have with getting girls. His skin is colored light, and so is his short-cut hair. His eyes are as blue as the sky and he have not got any freckles.
He is, as already stated, a complex person. His personality is not as I imagine a hero’s personality to be. He is unfaithful to his wife, he lies to people (even though the purpose is good), he makes use of the situation in Germany to make money etc. Then he changes and spends all his money to save as many Jews as possible, he risks his life for them everyday, but still he has a few lovers, not counting his wife, that he have not got any feelings for – he just uses them as objects. To sum it up, he is a good-hearted guy, but sometimes his lusts take the overhand over his moral. The way he is acting is maybe a result of his only close relative, his father, not accepting him anymore – instead he searches confirmation and acceptance from other ways. He is generous – he does not even doubt when risking all his money and himself to save Jews. He is open-minded, he changes from a Nazi to an as the Nazis call him in the book “Jew lover”. He is considerate; he gives his workers good food and healthy work-schemes.

Oscar Schindler plays the role as a hero in the story. He plays an important role in the book, not just because he is the main-character, but also because he is the opposite of the dark side, the Nazis. He is one of the few lights in the dark; he is the fighter of the evil. Without him the book would be full of evil without an opposite side, which would make the book less interesting, since you would only see the opinions and thoughts of one side, and there would not be a conflict.

There is a little girl in a red coat that gets brutally murdered by a SS-officer, she symbolizes the fear, helplessness and inferiority that the Jews in Germany and surrounding areas felt towards the Nazis during the Second World War. She also symbolizes the innocence that the Jews had in the conflict with the Nazis. This is by the way an important part of the book, this is where Oskar realizes that the Nazis may not be as good as he thought they were.
The boxcars which was used to transport Jews to death camps symbolize the control that the Nazis had over the Jews – they could bring them wherever they wanted to, whenever they wanted to.
The blueschein which was a stamp that important people with essential works would get symbolizes hope, control and power. When you got a blueschein you would much less likely get killed, since you were important, which brought the hope to survive this hell. But it also brought you some kind of control and power over the Nazis, they were not supposed to kill you, because you were too important – and therefore you had some kind of control and power over them.
The death camps which was where most of the Jews got killed symbolize the hate and the contempt that the Nazis felt towards the Jews during the Second World War, since they killed them in masses there. But the death camps does also symbolize disorder. Killing someone else is not a normal act in a civilized society, since ethics and morals follow civilized people. But in a disorder the brutality of human nature, which involves killing, comes up.
The Ghetto symbolizes the control that the Germans had over the Jews, they could decide where and how the Jews were going to live. But at first, when the Jews were allowed to have shops, restaurants and even get educated inside the ghetto it symbolized civilization and hope, although later one, when the Jews barely had the privileges to eat the ghetto symbolized, once again, the control that the Germans had over the Jews.
The constant surveillance that the Nazis had over the Jews symbolizes the fear for the Jews, because if they did not supervise the Jews the Jews would maybe have gotten the chance to strike back, which probably was the thing that the Nazis feared the most, an attack from within.

The narrator is third person omniscient, which means that the narrator is disembodied; it takes no actions and has no physical form in the story. The narrator is, as you might have guessed, omniscient – which means that it gives the reader a bird-eye view, it knows everything, even things which no character know.
My evidence for the narrator being third person omniscient is two quotes: “He was excited about this opportunity and knew it was important for his career, so he was determined to concentrate on the job, even though he had not been sleeping well and had been drinking more than ever recently” Page 37, about Amon Goeth.
The other quote is “The investigators understood what Oscar was talking about” Page 74.
Since the storyteller knows what other people feel, comprehend and think it makes it omniscient.

The main message that the author wants me to know is that war is wrong, in any form. Sometimes when you read a book or watch a documentary about war you do not get to know the whole situation, you see it from the presidents or the soldiers view. But in this book you see war in its cruelest form, from the view of the citizens who did not want the war, who did not choose to be a part of a society where killing is nothing special. You see mentally damaged soldiers following orders, not caring about how other people feel. You see citizens getting killed for nothing, you see people with no rights whatsoever and you see people living in fear, oppr...