Survivors who reference Schindler’s List in the course of relating their wartime experiences do so toward various ends.  In particular, those survivors who were Schindler Jews discuss the film differently from other interviewees.

Jews who were not rescued by Schindler sometimes refer to Schindler’s List in order to compare their own experiences to scenes in the film, citing an analogous account of the Holocaust that they assume is familiar to the interviewers.  As she discusses watching Schindler's List, Ritta Silberstein compares her own experience working in a factory during the war to that of Jews who worked in Schindler's factory.  Sia Hertsberg refers to Schindler’s List when describing deportations of children in Riga.  Hertsberg also describes the impact that watching Schindler’s List had on her, motivating her to talk about her own wartime experiences.

Schindler Jews reference Schindler’s List with a more specific and complex agenda. They validate, enhance, or challenge the film as an established record of events in which they participated. The film has an acknowledged authority, but so do the survivors, of a different kind, and the two are placed side by side.

Begin this path: Wartime narratives

1. Schindler Jews on the making of the film
2. Schindler Jews on the making of the film (continued)
3. How Schindler Jews watch the film

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