This Was Horrific! Schindler's List (1993) | First Time Watching Movie Reaction 

Wow, what hugely powerful film and a masterpiece of film making! Obviously this is quite a sensitive topic for many people, so please be respectful in the comments.

The shower scene. The Soldiers used to shower the workers when they’re about to go into a camp. They would also shower them 3-4 times under the pretence of disinfecting them before they went into the gassing them. It was a way for them go get them to walk into the chambers without resistance when their time came. They used the shower system to deliver the Zyklon B poison. It was often found that the bodies would be in piles or pyramids where people would climb on each other, trample one another, fight one another trying to get to the higher ground for air. When it got quiet, that’s when they would open the doors and transport the bodies to the ovens for cremation.

Don’t forget: this IS real History and Goeth was actually so much worse that you couldn’t play it like that. Spielberg said: no one would have believed that and thought he would dramatize it for the film

Jews put stones on graves as a sign of love and respect. The tradition is ancient. It comes from the time when Jews were shepherds. In ancient times, shepherds needed a system to keep track of their flocks. On some days, they would go out to pasture with a flock of 30; on others, a flock of 10. Memory was an unreliable way of keeping tabs on the number of the flock. As a result, the shepherd would carry a sling over his shoulder, and in it, he would keep the number of pebbles that cor­responded to the number in his flock. That way he could at all times have an accurate daily count. When the jews place stones on graves, they are asking God to keep the departed’s soul in His sling, saying the departed is in Gods flock.

I dont know if anyone told you, but the biggest change from reality was Armon Göth (the camp commander). In real life he was much, much worse. Spielberg said (meaning not word by word) "We had to scale him down, by alot. If we would have shown what he really did, noone would have believed us. People would have said, its like "cartoon-evil" so we did some stuff, that looked real. But in real life, he was a monster" When Göths daughter saw the movie for the first time, she had no idea of what her father really did. Her mother just said "he was in the army" but what she told, gave her daughter a picture in her mind. The moment she saw Ralph Finnes on screen, she said "His character wasnt mentioned yet, but the picture my mother told me .... i looked at him and i knew, this is my father"

"why would you dig them up and burn them?" hiding crimes and make it hard to get a body count. There were special divisions who did that all over the countries. A few eeks ago I watched a documentary about those divisions it was just heartbreaking to watch. But as said it's important that this is never forgotten.

That barrier between Amon and Oscar is a delimitation between darkness and light, evil and good, ugliness and beauty, captivity and freedom of the mind, nothing and forever, finally the villain and the hero..

That scene at the end where he counts how many more people he could have saved… the way he looks around trying to see who’s missing. What a masterful performance by Liam Neeson.

Schindler's List is based on a true story, though in movie form, which obviously requires modifications as the story is a couple years long and the movie just a couple of hours. I don't know why the book Schindler's Ark is considered fictional. I think when the author wrote it, he had only spoken to a single survivor so maybe he had to fill in with fictional scenarios to write his book. When Spielberg made Schindler's list, years of research and interviewing went into it. Real Schindler Jews were on site during filming. Spielberg's research also spawned his Shoah project. p.s. The beginning scene is just a regular Sabbath dinner.

33:50 "I really should have paid more attention in history class." SO TRUE!!! Just imagine how much better our world would be if everybody learned from history. After all, "He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it."

One of Spielberg’s many magnum opuses and one of the most important motion pictures ever made, Spielberg began production on this almost immediately after completing the main filming of Jurassic Park, he actually had to oversee the cgi for the dinosaurs and the audio mixing while on the way to film either the concentration camp or ransacking scenes, he would privately cry with his wife during the production and said that he wouldn’t have been able to get through it if it wasn’t for her, it is undoubtedly one of the most difficult films to watch but it is fundamentally important to remember what happened and ensure that it NEVER EVER happens again, rest in peace to EVERY innocent person ✌️

This movie is the jewel in the crown for Steven Spielberg, it’s an academy award winning film, the music is beautiful, it’s the best film depiction of the Holocaust

I lost family at Auschwitz and this movie crushes me every time. I’m so glad you took the time to watch this because our memories will help ensure this never happens again. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Respect

the showers were regular showers, but they also had a separate system for gas. that way they never knew whether they would just be showering or dying, any time they went in there. it was normal to just shower on their first day, for hygiene reasons, and then gassing them later on when they were ready for the big job of getting rid of the bodies afterwards. also, earlier in the war, they were used as forced labor and for medical experiments, and many not killed until they were to weak to be "of use" to them. so it wasn't all "kill them as quickly as possible". towards the end of the war though, the mass genocide really picked up, as they wanted to get rid of as many as possible to avoid eye witnesses. the "burning of the dead bodies" at the end of the war, was an attempt to hide what they had done in the camps. buried bodies can be dug up and the huge amount of bodies would be proof of the mass genocide they had been doing there.

Hugo boss didn't design the "nazi uniforms". They produced the SS uniforms. The SS members Karl Diebitsch and Walter Heck designed them.

Also, notice the transition of the theme throughout. It starts with oskar all by himself, ( one life) being on top of the world. Then when he had his factories and making money rubbing shoulders with the big bosses, you are constantly looking up at him. Then you levelled with him when he was watching the little girl in the red (one life). Then he decided to do what he can, Goeth asked him “ what’s one (one life) worth to you” then they cut the scene. At the end, the jews told him “ whoever saves one life the world entire. Oskar’s regret, “I could have got one more”.

I gained respect to you when you actually showed emotion.

The ceremony at the beginning is actually a fairly common one, that of sanctifying the sabbath on Friday nights, typically performed by the female head of the household. The candles are lit just as the sun sets. The prayer heard in the background is actually part of a separate sabbath ceremony performed before the evening meal. It's a blessing sanctifying the day that's made over wine.

In the shower/ gas room there are actually finger names scratching all the walls. It's absolutely terrifying.

The little girl with the red coat is a memory shared with speilberg by one issue Audrey Hepburn. She said that through the dark, screaming bodies of people being loaded onto train ( from which u never come back from ) screaming and crying but there she was this little girl looking so beautiful. What was terrifying was the look on her face, it was one of acceptance as what was going to happen to her as she was passed onto a cattle car on the train by a nazi officer. Audrey Hepburn said her I will never forget even tho I didn't know her. Speilberg himself couldn't forget the story either and he wanted everyone to never forget her either.

A true hero does not brag of those he saved, he mourns those he could not.

46:24 Yes, the Palestinian population certainly didn't like the Jews either, but that wasn't meant by that. The Jews have been hated everywhere in Europe since the Middle Ages, including Eastern Europe, thats what he meant by that.

Re: the shower scene: not everyone who went to Birkenau (the extermination camp at Auschwitz) was killed upon arrival, although children usually were. Birkenau had extensive barracks for prisoner who were considered fit enough to work, and who were intended to be worked to death. That's why the Auschwitz camp complex had so many more survivors than the camps that existed for extermination only, such as Treblinka or Belzec.

''skull badge'' also called the totenkopf in german, was an insignia of SS. the regular German officers had a cap and it was present with a roundel (don't remember the exact colors) and some oak-leaves, and the officers of SS had that distinct skull.

Wonderful reaction. Very unrelated to the subject matter, but related to an early comment: I remember when you could smoke on planes.

The placement of rocks on the grave is a Jewish tradition signifying that you have visited to pay respects and pray for the deceased. Kind of like how it is with the leaving of flowers at a grave.

It is customary to place a stone on Jewish gravestones as a sign of visitation. The stones - as far as I know - represent humility and permanence.

Fun fact, just as Mr. Schindler a Nazi sympathizer that helped Jews against other Nazis there was also a Japanese business man or government official I don't remember which, stationed in China at the time of the invasion of the Imperial Japanese army in China, he did similar things protecting as many Chinese people as he could and protected them from the Japanese Imperial army. 33:48 They would separate the kids that were twins for medical and other types of experimentation (they most likely died a very painful death) the rest of the kids would be use for torture, rape and mass kill them with the rest in the concentration camps. It made no sense to kill their work force its true but the Nazis had no real use for the Jews, they were going to kill them all anyway eventually. This is why the Nazis weren't the smartest group.

There's a review of this film on Amazon expressing shock -- repeatedly -- about the nudity. Not a word of shock about the violence and murders.

Out of many Schindler's List reaction videos I have watched, this is the first that is very clinically dispassionate without any regard to the subject. Talk about camera position, lighting sound effect while the scenes are about people being shot and killed. Totally heartless and void of human emotions

Movie wasn’t as brutal as what really happened. And yes they were told their taking showers and were gassed. That’s not snow in the movie, it’s ashes from the bodies. This was only 70 years ago.

5:47 "Por una Cabeza" is a 1935 tango song that also features in ''Scent of a Woman'' (1992) and ''True Lies'' (1994).

Oh yeah, this all happened and worse and more ... My grandma and mother told me that the real thing was way way worse... After the war there were 4 people left from a VERY large family, namely my grandma, my mom and 2 uncles.

In fact, the soldiers used many tactics to get the workers to comply. It was very calculated. The soldiers would tell them to label their luggage because it was gonna be put in a different train. It was a trick to make the workers think they will be safe and the soldiers had no intention to harm them, they were just workers being transported from one camp to another. That they were just ordinary workers in a segregated train coz of who they were. The trains delivered them straight to the main camp where they will be gassed and their luggage were looted. Before stepping into the chambers, they would instructed to remember where they’ve put their shoes because shoes tend to get missing or get mixed. In reality, they were never stepping out of the chambers back alive.

Re: wondering if you get to see hitler: Since you watched the movie you already know that part, but there are at least two other historical nazi figures other than Goethe and Schindler depicted: Auschwitz camp commandant Rudolf Hoess (the one that took the diamond bribe to free the women) and "Dr" Josef Mengele (walking up and down the line asking "How old are you, mother?" ) In my opinion, Mengele was quite arguably worse than hitler.

Jews were not considered people with a different opinion although that is how it started, for hundreds of years, in the Christian world, the Jews were considered as the people who rejected Jesus, that made anything bad happening to the Jews seen as a punishment for rejecting the true god. For centuries that opinion was all that matters, if a Jew said he is converting to Christianity he became a legitimate part of society at that moment. But things changed in Spain in the 15th century, when big numbers of Jews converted to Christianity, in short, the sheer number created a “social problem” for the original Christians that now saw the “new Christians” suddenly getting equal rights and compete for work and positions of power. So a new law came into place restricting converts that had any jew in their lineage for four generations back, that was the first time the difference of opinion have changed into a racial/biological difference, that position became more and more radical in Europe until the nazis took it to the “next level”.

putting rocks on a grave is a jewish tradition. we put them basicly to respect the dead and show people come to his grave. also, in the jewish religiom there is no point in putting flower since the dead can apreciate them..because they aren't a part of the materialistic world anymore. what i love about this story is the facr that schindler isn"t a typical hero. he's not 100% good, he got some flaws. loved your reaction BTW.

Here in germany in some schools this movie is a mandatory watch. I wish it would be in more countries so one must never let anything like this happen ever again

42:03 One of the most crulest scenes in the film when a German soldier gives a young female re-assuring smile as he leads her to certain death in the incinerator or gas chamber.

👍🏽♥️ for the algorithm. I love your commentary. Keep making content. Thank you!

Blue and white clothing would be as close as the Jews could have gotten to wearing Tallit, which are ritual garments worn by married men when they pray. The sidelocks that were cut off are known as peis.

Hugo Boss didn't design the uniforms, he only manufactured them in his plants.

The Skull on some German Uniform indicates, that the person is a part of SS-troop, who, amongst other tasks, operated the German Koncentration Camps

And once again, extremely observant righteous comments.

Rocks are put down because flowers decay very quickly and rocks last a very long time.

The Skull and Cross bones symbol actually has two meanings. If it is just in the hat or cap it means you’re a member of the SS, regardless of department. However, if an SS officer or soldier has a skull and crossbones symbol on the right collar of their jacket, that specifically denotes a member of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) “Deaths Head Unit”. It was the Concentration Camp Service for the SS.

Im now 56, it saddens me that ppl under the age of 40 dont know the history of ww2 and the Holocaust

I'm hooked to all ww2 movies for almost 3 months. I'm always watching movies during ww2

Topstuff as always rourkshire, great film, top review. 🙂

They didn’t gas this kids. The kids of the Krakow ghetto were killed in a mass grave in the forest.

Unfortunately the camp commander Amon Göth was at least 10x worse in real life truly despicable and sad

Lmao ‘I’m Schindler, IM BATMAN’ I’m goin to hell for laughin at that 😂

Authentic reaction, I appreciated it. Nah, you don't seem dead inside. Yes, the character of Schindler is complex, he isn't a typical hero; then again, the point is that anyone can end up choosing to let themselves feel injustice and do something about it. Not just the obvious person will turn out to be virtuous. As for your observations at the end, yes of course it was completely irrational strategically for the Nazis to expend resources on the "Final Solution." But their evil ideology painted Jews as the cause of all their problems, and they had begun persecuting and dehumanizing the Jewish people in the 1930's already. So by the time they were ready to actually move them into ghettos and finally kill them, normal citizens would support these actions or at least not get too upset about them. Anti-semitism is the mother of all conspiracy theories; and conspiracy theories play an important role when grooming a population into acceptance of fascism.

The music at the start in the nightclub is Por Una Cabeza, its the same piece of music Al Pacino does the tango to in Scent of a Woman.

The curls in the hair are called payess. In Nazi Germany, and throughout other periods of oppression, people made sport of cutting them. This is a huge and intimate assault. It was especially awful considering these men wouldn't be fighting back.

Many of the scenes are more accurate than you would think. Like the scene where oscar wore a white suit and had the train hosed down was told by witnesses. The women being sent to auschwitz whether deliberate or by accident really happened although no one knows exactly how he got them out of there. These are some examples.

why stones? putting an stone there, means: I was there, I did not forget you

Great reaction n now I'm a subscriber

A selfish man will say "i did enough" A righteous man will say "i couldve done more" Schindler looking at his car and pin as people he couldve gotten will forever break my heart. He did so much and he still felt it wasnt enough.

The first scene is not a funeral, but rather the "Savri Maranan" blessing as part of welcoming the Shabbat. As for the 'rocks' question, it is really uncommon for us to put flowers on graves, traditionally speaking, for several reasons. For one, it's a material of beauty of which the deceased cannot enjoy and secondly, just like people, flowers die out. We put stones as sign of respect, and to show the visitors of the cemetery that the grave is not left "orphaned." when visiting the grave and putting the stone we basically tell the whole world "this person who rests here was loved and is remembered." You put a stone for a family member, as well as a friend and at times even a personal you didn't personally know but do respect. It's a very wellkept tradition up to this day.

Sometimes the showers had water, sometimes they had gas.

Excellent choice, thank you 😊 Next…Band of Brothers mini series pretty please 🍿 Keep it up!

Your comments have excellent insight (and darkness too). I wonder how such an inquisitive personality would have fit if you were German at that time.

That music you said early in the the reaction sounded familiar was in the film SCENT OF A WOMAN starring Al Pacino as a blind war veteran. Dunno if you watched it.

Nice reaction 👌

also... one of the facts that always gets me is when the "Schindler" women were called by name. It's the only time any names were called in Auschwitz. Usually you were just a number once you were there. That is actually the scene that always gets me

The historical novel "Schindler's Ark" is based on a number of accounts from the Schindler Jews - it's largely true but it depends on memory, there are aspects like what people were thinking that we really don't know, scenes that are extrapolated or based on hearsay, that kind of thing. Schindler himself was a really complicated guy who did one very good thing. In terms of keeping Jews alive to do the work.... their intent, or the intent of many Nazis, was to kill them. "The final solution" was formulated halfway through the war. They did not see the Jews as human, and they wanted to kill them all, so they set up practical ways of doing that. There's a good PBS documentary called "Worse than War" that talks about genocide and how people can commit atrocities.

Well I’m not sure when it’s history it’s film noir. Yes it’s dark and depressing but since this is real life it’s maybe something a little different. Shocking certainly, informative absolutely. My dad was WW2. I knew enough to know what happened back there. My perspective is based on what my dad said and seeing all his war buddies who became like my Uncles. The thing I knew was that it became very apparent that things they saw and did back then wore very heavily on them. The war ended but not for them. The price they paid for going to war in their efforts to preserve our way of life was incredibly high.

i'm extremely late to the game, so i don't expect that this comment will be read 1. erasing history (taking down monuments) is not the same as not glorifying/condemning history. all over germany almost the first thing that happened after ww 2 was the taking down of nazi-monuments, the nazi-flags, renaming streets and places named after nazis etc. - but germany has not forgotten about its past, on the contrary, the subject is being dealt with quite thoroughly. my opinion: a monument glorifying a person/system responsible for atrocities does not belong in a place of honour (center of some plaza, e.g.), especially uncommented, it belongs into a museum. 2. some kind of measure that applies to the whole population (i'm guessing you are referring to covid-measures, but it works with anything really) is fundamentally different from a measure designed to strip an arbitrarily chosen group off any rights/rules that apply to the rest of the population. "if you get the vaccine/have a mask on/... you can do these-and-these things" or "all of the population isn't allowed to go outside" is very different from "it doesn't matter what you do/get/are/have - if you were born into this religious/ethnic group you cannot do these-and-these things, the rules don't apply to you, you will die". not meaning any offense.

“That’s kinda how Amazon works”. Scary but true.

No it didnt hapen like this...It was alot worse.

Auschwitz was a large facility and there were multiple sub camps. Auschwitz II Birkenau was just a death camp. People were sorted and the vast majority were killed by being gassed and then having their bodies burned in mass crematoria. Others were cleaned and disinfected and sent to work in other sub camps. Of course, most were worked to death as they didn't get proper food and medical care was a bullet. One of the producers of the movie, Branko Lustig is a survivor of Auschwitz. When Schindler's list won best picture, Lustig started his speech by reading his number.

As a major industrialist, he was that important in the Reich.

Shower scene. There was two type of installation in Birkenau. You have seen in the scene the first in which womens entered: the Sauna (Bad und disinfestaktion) that was a real shower in which "necessary prisoners" (Hauflinge) were took a shower before become slave. The second in where women and children is directed in the second part of scene. What you seen in the Crematorium. There were 4 giant installation in Birkenau in which "unnecessary prisoner" prisoner were killed in fake shower room: the gas chamber. At the end you can see the smoke over the crematorium than change color: when this happened, it means that bodies were burning.

Czechoslovakia was liberated by the Soviet army, what do you mean by "I don't think so..."?

FYI, the ceremony at the beginning was marking the beginning of Shabbat (Sabbath)

They really have been liberated by the soviet army btw

It is my understanding that when they gave people a bar of soap before entering the shower chamber was so they would walk in willingly... also... it depended how the Nazis felt... for about half the time the Jews got the shower and the other half of the time it was poison gas... depending on how they felt at the moment 😣

damn, and I thought I was a cold man.

Hugo Boss didn't design nazi uniforms They were designed by Karl Diebitsch and Walter Heck Hugo Boss was just one of many companies making clothes that had a contract with the army Also after 1948 when Hugo Boss died the company was bought by italians and since then has kept nothing but the name

53:31 What if you were a Jew in a wheelchair? There's a scene in ''The Pianist'' (2002) that answers that question. Your observations are blunt but (I think) well-intentioned. Subscribed.

Amon Goeth - Ralph Feinnes character - was in the SS. He wears an SS uniform. The skull on his cap is the so-called "death's head" (totenkopft) ensignia of the SS. And labour camps for jews WERE concentration camps.

The skull is a symbol of the ss. It's a very dark symbol. The ss symbols are the skull and the lighting symbol

Really suprised at your comment about being desensitised to horror and violence because "we" all watch violent/horror TV and film. Glad I don't, ever. This film was horrific, violent and hugely upsetting and I'm glad fake, fictional shit didn't affect my reaction (or most others to whom I've seen react to this film).

The skull on the officer's hats, is called a totemkoph, it was many waffen ss symbols of the death squads.

The shower facilities and the gas chambers were the same room. When the Jewish people were put in there they did not know whether it would be water or poisonous gas coming out of the shower heads. On the other side of the room were the devices that would be hooked up either to water or to the containers containing the poisonous gas.

The accent-thing can be a bit jarring at first, but is a way to distinguish those supposing to speak German from Polish, although often the German characters simply speak German

It is a true story based on true events and true people.

For the skull 💀, you must see a one video of Mark Felton "Nazi Symbols" means....

late comment but when you said "based on a true story but it didnt happen like this" Spielberg softened it up since it was way worse.

What you have to remember is this did not happen over night. Hitler became Chancelor in 1933 on a maifesto (not unlike Trump) to make Germany great again as it had suffered heavy sanctions after the first world war. A lot of the financial institutions and comodities were traded by the Jewish community many from other countries due to the sanctions. Hitler used the Jewish as a scapegoat for the terrible situation Germany was in financialy, turning the normal polulation against them. Once the war started he had built up such a strong army he had carte blanche to do what he wanted both in Germany, Ausria, Poland and Czechoslovakia.

We Jews do not place flowers on the burial place of the dead. Flowers wilt and die. Almost as a mockery to the deceased, who can’t even enjoy their beauty. Instead, we place stones because stones are eternal. It also has its roots in the Bible, when someone passed away, they would erect stones over the place that where they died. If you ever visit Israel, you will notice the graves have stones placed on them from loved ones.

36:42 Hiding evidence.

Burning Dead Bodies Scene Always Give Me PTSD, Even I'm Not Survivor Of Holocaust Just Normal Modern South Korean... You Wanna Know Why I Feel PTSD?? Because That Scene Looks Like Fucking Hell! 😭🥵😭

46:16 of course they have been liberated by the soviet army! the soviets fought the nazis in the eastern front and paid by the highest price of all nations. more than eight million soviet soldiers died fighting the wehrmacht and the waffen-ss.

The skull and crossbones on the hat means he's SS.

It get's more real if you work with old peopel (like I do) I am working in retirement homes for a decade now - and I once had that old men who was proud to tell how many people he could and did kill with one bullet. And you then have to be empathic and be nice, whne he starts dying. (Besides he treated all non German workers like shit - but then he had also dementia). my granddad also was 18 when the war ended and he had horroble stories to tell. we have been educated about that part of our history. I remember when that film came out all of our year had to watch it ( we were 9th grade then). Also... when we were in America with our school choir we hadto vosot the Holocaust museum and one of our history teachers used to tell us "it's all your fault" and he got so mad when I told him I do not think that MY fault when even my granddad was only 18 when the war ended. I know it's our history but I do not feel persoally guilty for it. We just need to make sure it never happens again! And it's not forgotten.

The sidelocks on the Jews were called payes/peyes in Yiddish, or pe'ot in Hebrew

Just so you know, the thing about wearing only blue and white on the Sabbath isn't really a custom in Judaism at large. I'm assuming you learned it from the Jewish summer camp you worked at because it's common at such camps and Jewish schools on Fridays; it's kind of like a sign of spirit and togetherness, rather than a religious requirement.

I would recommend watching downfall it's a great movie about the last days in the bunker it's in german but it's still a really good movie