Celebrated, awarded and controversial is Steven Spielberg’s historical drama Schindler’s List from 1993. Anyone who wants to see the film about an extraordinary rescue operation during the horrors of the Holocaust can catch up on TV tonight.
The Story of Schindler’s List
Schindler’s List is based on Thomas Keneally’s book of the same name, which unfolds the history of German industrialist Oskar Schindler. Schindler (Liam Neeson) was a member of the NSDAP and after the German invasion of Poland in 1939 he went to Kraków to build a living there, taking advantage of the war.
He took over an idle factory and quickly became rich. As he Witness to the inhuman treatment of the Jews he begins to save them from deportation and murder by the Nazis by employing them in his company. The survivors went down in history as Schindlerjuden.
The trailer for Schindler’s List:
Schindler’s List – Trailer (German)
The film follows Schindler’s move to Poland to the late days of World War II. Ben Kingsley plays Schindler’s accountant Itzhak Stern, while Ralph Fiennes takes on the role of sadistic SS man Amon Göth.
Spielberg’s epic was celebrated and harshly criticized
Schindler’s List is among Steven Spielberg’s most critically acclaimed films, appears on numerous leaderboardswon seven Academy Awards and received rave reviews from peers like Martin Scorsese.
Probably the best-known American film about the systematic murder of around 6 million European Jews by Nazi Germany and collaborating countries did not remain free of criticism. Filmmakers such as Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon) and Claude Lanzmann (Shoah) criticized the staging of the gas chambers. To this day, Schindler’s list is the subject of debate about what Holocaust films can and can’t show.
Why the Spielberg film is shown on TV in this country without advertising
Today, June 7, Schindler’s list will again be shown ad-free on Kabel eins. This is due, among other things, to Steven Spielberg’s own wishes, but also to public criticism after the film was first broadcast on free TV in Germany in 1997.
At that time, ProSieben showed the film, which was mostly shot in black and white, with two advertising blocks, which has been criticized as irreverent. Since then, Schindler’s list has been shown on local television, usually without advertising.
Cable one shows Schindler’s list today at 8:15 p.m. If you want to catch up on the film, you can currently watch it with a Netflix and Amazon Prime Video subscription.