jueves, 9 de diciembre de 2010

Processes of peacemaking and peace building around the world (Schindler's List)

The Peacemaking process is a flexible process that was made to facilitate the peaceful, respectful resolution of disagreements between people.

Beside of the nominations an Grammys that this movie won i think that the strong content it has help a lot to demonstrate tings that happened in real life and how it affected the word in that time.

The film begins in 1939 with the German-initiated relocation of Polish Jews from surrounding areas to the Kraków Ghetto shortly after the beginning of World War II. Meanwhile, Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), an ethnic German businessman from Moravia, arrives in the city in hopes of making his fortune as a war profiteer. Schindler, a member of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, lavishes bribes upon theWehrmacht and SS officials in charge of procurement. Sponsored by the military, Schindler acquires a factory for the production of army mess kits. Not knowing much about how to properly run such an enterprise, he gains a close collaborator in Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), an official of Krakow's Judenrat (Jewish Council) who has contacts with the Jewish business community and the black marketers inside the Ghetto. The Jewish businessmen lend Schindler the money for the factory in return for a small share of products produced. Opening the factory, Schindler pleases the Nazis and enjoys his newfound wealth and status as "Herr Direktor", while Stern handles all the administration. Schindler hires Jewish Poles instead of Catholic Poles because they cost less (the workers themselves get nothing; the wages are paid to the SS). Workers in Schindler's factory are allowed outside the ghetto, and Stern falsifies documents to ensure that as many people as possible are deemed "essential" to the German war effort, which saves them from being transported to concentration camps, or being killed.

At first, Schindler prepares to leave Kraków with his ill-gotten fortune. He finds himself unable to do so, however, and prevails upon Göth to allow him to keep his workers so that he can move them to a factory in his old home of Zwittau-Brinnlitz, in Moravia away from the Final Solution, now fully underway in occupied Poland. Göth eventually acquiesces, but charges a massive bribe for each worker. Schindler and Stern assemble a list of workers who are to be kept off the trains to Auschwitz.

After a few scenes depicting post-war events and locations, such as the execution of Amon Göth for war crimes and a brief summary of what eventually happened to Schindler in his later years, the film returns to the Jews walking to the nearby town. As they walk abreast, the black and white frame changes to one in color of present-day Schindler Jews at Schindler's gravesite in Jerusalem (where he wanted to be interred). The film ends by showing a procession of now-elderly Jews who worked in Schindler's factory, each of whom reverently sets a stone on his grave - a traditional Jewish custom denoting deep gratitude or thanks to the deceased. The actors portraying the major characters walk hand-in-hand with the people they portrayed, placing their stones as they pass. (Ben Kingsley is accompanied by the widow of Itzhak Stern, who died in 1969.) The audience learns that, at the time of the film's release, there were fewer than 4,000 Jews left alive in Poland, but more than 6,000 descendants of the Schindler Jews throughout the world. In the final scene, Liam Neeson (although his face is not visible) places a pair of roses on the grave and stands contemplatively over it.

1 comentario:

  1. I think that the process of peacemaking it kind like an obligation of every country, that we all know that there’s nothing to gain when you’re going to war. Also it’s important to mention the countries which doesn’t have an armed force so they contribute with this peace process. For example: Costa Rica, Grenada, Liechtenstein, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Solomon Islands and Vatican City, among 8 more.

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