Schindler Jews on the making of the film
Some Schindler Jews recount their experience in the film's creation in the course of their life stories. Marianne Rosner explains how she and her husband, Henry, were involved in Schindler’s List, both as characters portrayed by actors and appearing along with other Schindler Jews in the film’s epilogue. She relates an episode of her husband’s past that appears in Thomas Keneally’s book Schindler’s Ark, on which Spielberg’s film is based—an episode that apparently was included in the original shooting script of the film. In the course of her account, Rosner merges this incident and its mediation. Indeed, she mentions the episode’s filming before relating the episode itself.
Schindler Jews demonstrate a need to reckon not only with the narrative of Schindler’s List but also with its creation: Several discuss what they know about how Spielberg’s film or Keneally’s book were made, explaining their participation (or lack thereof) in the process. Helen Jonas Rosenzweig reports that her older sister was upset that she was not mentioned in Keneally’s book. Rosenzweig’s own actual experiences vie with the demands of character and plot, ultimately yielding to them.
Several survivors discuss the politics of creating both Keneally’s book and Spielberg’s film, explaining, for example, how Keneally first learned about Schindler from Poldek Pfefferberg (also known as Leopold Page), a Schindler Jew. When an interviewer asks Victor Dortheimer, another Schindler Jew, how true the film is to what actually happened, he addresses its discrepancies at length.
| Previous page on path | Wartime narratives, page 1 of 3 | Next page on path |
Discussion of "Schindler Jews on the making of the film"
Add your voice to this discussion.
Checking your signed in status ...