Hollywood's Holocaust: Schindlers List and the Construction of Memory

Lynn Rapaport | Special In-Depth Section Hollywood's Holocaust: Schindler's List and the Construction of Memory1 Lynn Rapaport Pomona College Introduction One day in 1980, a well-known Australian writer, Thomas Keneally, visited a leather goods store in Beverly Hills, California , to inquire about briefcases. Amidst the shelves of imported Italian leather goods, Keneally met the store owner, Leopold Pfefferberg, who goes by the nickname "Poldek." He is a Czech Jew who, after the war, changed his name to Leopold Page. He asked Keneally what he did for a living. "A writer," replied Keneally. "A good one?" asked Poldek. "Some think so," he answered. "In any case I make a living out of it." "Then I have a story for you for the theme of a book," said Poldek.2 It was through this chance encounter that Keneally first heard of Oskar Schindler, as Poldek was a Schindler survivor.3 Drawing oninterviews with 50 Schindler survivors who were wartime associates and friends of Schindler, and on testimonies deposited at Yad Vashem by Jews saved by Schindler, as well as visiting locations that figure prominently in the book, Keneally usedthe texture and devices ofanovel to tell a true story.4 "I have attempted, however, to avoid all fiction, since fiction would debase the record, and to distinguish between reality and the myths which are likely to attach themselves to a man ofOskar's stature," writes Keneally. "It has sometimes been necessary to make reasonable constructs of conversations of which Oskar and others have left only the briefest record. But most exchanges and conversations , and all events, are based on the detailed recollections of the Schindlerjuden (Schindler Jews), of Schindler himself, and of other witnesses to Oskar's acts of outrageous rescue."5 Sidney Scheinberg, president of MCA, purchased the screen rights to Keneally's book, believing it was a perfect vehicle for his protégé, Steven Spielberg. Steve Zallian wrote the screenplay , and it would take ten years before Spielberg began shooting the film. "I didn't go to workonitright away, because I didn'tknow how to do it," Spielberg said in atelevised interview. "The story didn't have the same shape as the other films I German industrialist Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson) and Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley) assemble the list of more than 1,100 Jewish workers to be placed under Schindler's protection. have made. It is certainly not an entertaining story in the way I make entertainment. It was something that didn't come naturally for me. I also needed time to mature within myself and develop my own consciousness about the Holocaust. I had to wait until a time when I really felt that I was ready to express myself on the subject of Oskar Schindler and make a very serious movie about his life and deeds." 6 When Schindler's List opened in only a few select theatres around the country, it grossed slightly less than $1 million in its first weekend. The film went on to win seven Academy Awards, including best director and best picture, and gross a total of $95 million in the United States and over $221 million at foreign box offices, not including video sales. An estimated 25 millionAmericans saw the film. When Schindler's List had its television debut on NBC on Sunday, February 23, 1997, an estimated 65 million viewers watched the film.7 It had by far the biggest audience of any nonsports program on televisionthat season and, according to Nielsen Media Research, 34 percent ofthe homes watching television that night were toned to Schindler's List} By using Schindler's List as a case study, comparing Keneally's book with Steven Zaillian's screenplay and Steven Spielberg's film, this paper addresses the controversies surrounding whether it is appropriate to deal with the topic of the Holocaust in popular culture. How does one create a film based on the Holocaust, and make it both morally just and marketable? More generally, what is the role ofpopular culture in political and social life, and how does it serve the interests of Holocaust education? Is it a legitimate avenue to express arepresentation ofthe Holocaust, or do commercial...