Tregre: Week 3, Schindler and Wallenberg

Schindler and Wallenberg were two men who stuck out during times of genocide. I have touched base on it in previous blogs, but many people did not stand up in the face of adversity. However, one must ponder, what made Schindler and Wallenberg different than the majority.

Through this clip you can see how terrible the circumstances are. To stand up in this face of terror would take immense courage. Once again, a main interest for me in this course is the psychology of the Holocaust and genocides. This is usually called diffusion of responsibility phenomenon. It is a social phenomenon which tends to occur in larger groups of people when responsibility is not explicitly assigned. This happened in the Holocaust. It was bad to murder people, however, instead of doing the right thing, they assumed other people would take care of it, put an end to it, and just follow along. On the other hand, the terror was so real that people may have been frozen to conform. But there are always those people who go against the grain.

Schindler's List was a shocker. Schindler himself was a Nazi party member, catholic, womanizer, and would take part in activities to increase his money. He was not the person one would pick to save thousands of Jews. He took sides with the underdog and would always try to help the person in need. Schindler would have Jews work for him and they actually would not produce anything. His workers always had food and clothing. There was never any cruelty. He grew more and more concerned with the Jewish workforce the more he saw the Nazi's persecuting them. He turned his factory into a safe haven for Jews. He saved over 1,100 of them. When one is so disgusted with the terror of torture and killing of innocent people, some step up and some go along with it. Schindler could not turn his back on this terrible time. He helped these people and used his power to save lives. He took responsibility and made a difference. Though he may not have had the best morals, he knew what was right and wrong in this instance and took action. It takes a strong sense of self to turn against something as strong as the Nazis were.
Wallenberg was also a surprise. This man did not have to work, but chose to. He saved thousands by passing out passports to Jews. He also had 37-38 safe houses and also took charge to make a difference. Wallenberg was another person who chose to take responsibility and use his power to make a difference. When he met Jews who escaped HItler's Germany, their stories of what the Nazi's put them through affected him greatly. He also felt responsible since he in fact owned a drop of Jewish blood himself.

Both of these men took responsibility for what was going on. That is the keyword of this posting, responsibility. Good people just listened to authority and went with the flow somehow trusting that these choices were right, however, it took guts to take responsibility for these actions and to help put an end to them.

Ramon: Week 3- Wallenberg and Schindler

For the first time, we are able to see what life was like for the Jews during the Holocaust. I use ‘life’ specifically because we do see the ‘life’ of the Jews manifested in Good Evening. Mr. Wallenberg and in Schindler’s List.

First, I’ll focus on the individuals these films are based off of. Both Raoul Wallenberg and Oscar Schindler were in a sense ‘normal’ people. They were, in a sense, allies of the Nazi regime, and were not persecuted by the Nazis. They were witness to the illegitimate persecution of the Jews, and decided to act upon it.

Bryce Courtenay write a spectacular novel entitled “The Power of One.” I will not add a spoiler to this blog for those who wish to read into this book, but it is the story of one boy, Peekay, who is persecuted. By his will power and his connections, he is able to overpower a wrecking force in his community. Peekay does not solve the problem; rather he takes it into his hands to do his best to rid a problem of bullying and persecution in his community.

This translates quite well to this actions Wallenberg and Schindler take. They did not end the persecution of the Jews. In the overall picture, they only were able to save a small population of Jews. However, there was a greater deed done by these two men. I have spoken before about what the power of a legacy. The most lasting impact Wallenberg and Schindler made is that they were able to save the legacy of tens of thousands of Jews. If those two men did not see the window of opportunity and the illegitimacy of the persecution, the legacies of those people would be lost. To make this a twofold approach to how many Jews were saved, the most important legacies manifested in the offspring of humans. If it was not for these two individuals, those approximately 100,000 saved by Wallenberg and the 1,200 saved by Schindler, easily grew to double or even triple the number with their offspring.

Finally, in the beginning of this post I mentioned the ‘life’ of the Jews. An integral part of the Wallenberg and Schindler plans was the support and attitude of the Jews in their company. More specifically, it was touching to see the normal religious practices still taking place during their hiding. The Sabbath was observed to the best possible, and prayer still occurred no matter where or what condition they were in. The Gospel of Matthew 18:20, “"For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst."