Not of love and hate, but of hate and tolerance (spoilers)

Rating: 10/10 (4 October 2002)

The European Holocaust unleashed by Adolph Hitler and his deranged madmen will always be one of history's darkest moments. To present this on film is one of the most difficult things to do, how do you present all the tragedy, horror, grotesque, and evil of the events from 1939-1945 outside of Western eyes for six long years with the sense of hope that still remained in many minds...many didn't live to see that hope come true in the form of liberating capitalists and communists.
Spielberg has gone from creating fun films like Indiana Jones to drama of the first order. Many scenes oft mentioned by critics still can resonate in our minds with both visual beauty and unflinching brutality. The Krakow ghetto liquidation, Schindler making his various deals, the near executions and the ones that fall through, the burning of the bodies at the camps. All of this is done in a fashion unlike Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg's other big WWII movie. Neeson is perfect as the man who is both human (immoral, corrupt, and sinful like all of us) and savior (do-gooder, compassionate).
Six million Jews were burned, gassed, shot, or died of starvation in the Holocaust, such equivalence would be nuking New York. For such horrible loss, the Jews gained a nation to call their own. THAT is why for 70 years they have continuously fought the Arabs and never lost, to prevent another Holocaust that the UN could never stop from occuring.
By far the most psychologically unique character of Schindler's List is Amon Goethe (most excellently portrayed by Ralpy Fiennes) as the cruel, SS commandant. When he is first introduced in the Krakow winter, he is being shown the ghetto. After his guide is almost finished, what does Amon say? Not sum racist comment or other Nazi-related speech on Aryan superiority, rather: "Why is the roof down? I'm f***king freezing!" He doesn't care about people, later he takes potshots at his own prisoners and uses a method of extracting information from suspected thieves that would have Primetime drooling. In a moment of possible humanity by being remotely polite to Helen, his Jewish "maid" brought in from the camps. Possibly resisting the urge to rape her, he beats her instead when his self-control runs out. We are not sorry to see him die at the end.
If the end or some point near the end does not cause you to reflect on your life or even just cry, you have missed the whole point of the movie that we can never again let anything like the holocaust happen--understood in places like Rwanda it is too late for that but our thoughts must be of tolerance and not blatant hate.