Schlindlers List: The Little Girl in The Red Coat Ethics

 Megan Benotti                                                                       [pic 1]

PHI240-001                                                             https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1VL-y9JHuI

Mr. Hairr

April 9, 2016

Schindler’s List: The Little Girl in the Red Coat.  

For Aristotle, moral decisions are based on doing the sort of thing that an honorable citizen would do. “To be a person of worth, one must put the needs of the citizenship before one’s own.” (Vitrano).  Aristotle argued that one must always act with excellence and the virtues of pride and courage seem appropriate with the actions Schindler organized.

 Also, Nietzsche maintained that if “one was to achieve greatness, one must be willing to go beyond considerations of conventional notions of good and evil. To truly live authentically, one must create value for oneself.” (Vitrano)

“Oskar Schindler, a member of the Nazi party, not because of any love for the Nazi’s, but because it made good business sense in 1940’s Germany” (unknown), would be the last person you would expect to have any type of ethics! A man who used unethical and unorthodox methods in his business methods, he was known to bribe his resources, and use the black market to purchase expensive and hard to find items, i.e. pineapples, caviar and cigars, to gift to his Nazi/ Gestapo friends to receive the permits he needed to start his pots and pans factory in heavily fortified, Nazi’s, Krakow, Poland. He was an obnoxious, egotistical, self-centered, man.

“To staff his factory, he turned to Krakow's Jewish community, which, Stern, his Jewish bookkeeper told him, was a good source of cheap, reliable labor.” (unknown)

His steamer truck collections of money had begun. He had the workers, who he really didn’t care about, and bragged to his wife, that he had “more people working for him than his father”. (Spielberg)  This seemed like a great accomplishment, that he bested his father.

“On 13–14 March 1943, the final 'liquidation' of the ghetto was carried out under the command of SS-Untersturmführer Amon Göth (his SS rank being the equivalent to a 2nd Lieutenant). Eight thousand Jews deemed able to work were transported to the Płaszów labor camp. Those deemed unfit for work – some 2,000 Jews – were killed in the streets of the ghetto on those days with the use of police auxiliaries.  Any remaining were sent to Auschwitz.” (Wikipedia)

From the movie, (Spielberg) this is the scene, witnessing innocent people being murdered in the streets, rounded up and put onto trucks and a little girl, probably around the age of 3 or 4, walking through the ciaos bravely that seems to turn Oskar Schindler’s attitude around.

  Liam Neelson, who is playing the role of Oskar Schindler, is out for a horseback ride with his current mistress. I’m guessing they hear the noise coming from the ghetto and ride over to find out what the commotion is about. To their horror they are watching men, women and children beaten, kicked, rousted into lines and pushed up into the back of trucks. The noise is horrendous and the scenes from below a nightmare. The look on his face, at what he is watching is disgust. (Spielberg)

 Then Schindler spots a little girl walking, she’s only 3 or 4. She’s wearing a red coat and can be easily seen. She’s just a cute little thing, and would put a smile on his face if he saw her another time, but when he spots her he goes instantly on alert. His face grows angry and concerned at the same time. (Spielberg) He would rush down the hill that he is watching this nightmare enfolded from if he could. You can see on his face he wants to! She is walking past lines of people going in the other direction. She doesn’t seem afraid or cries out looking for her mother with all the noise and killing going on around her. She’s a very brave little girl!