Schindler's list

So Brandon bought this classic movie. I have never seen it before but thought I probably should. It seemed important, ya know. Anyway, we watched it in two sittings. It is very long. I was very surprised. I had all kinds of assumptions, but I guess I had no idea what it was about. First of all, it was made in the 90's...no idea. I saw all of these actors I recognized but hesitated to point them out because I was like, no way, this is so old and they are that age now. Second, Schindler turns out to be a pretty good guy. This whole time when I heard the name Schindler, I thought it was the guy who made up the list of Jews that were to be killed. In actuality, he saved a lot of Jews.
Now I dont want to ruin this for anyone that has not seen it, but I do think it would be a good idea for you to borrow it from us or go rent it.
Alright, I tried to write this without telling the whole premise, but I dont think it is possible so stop reading if you dont want it ruined....
The story is of this rich man who gets the great idea to use Jews as cheap/slave laborers in his factory. He is actually pretty smart. He determines thatpots and pans are the greatest need of society, and he trains jews to make them. The story continues as the Nazi's force the Jews to move to Ghettos and eventually concentration camps. As this happens, Schindler refuses to loose "his workers." He demands that the Nazi's allow him to keep his workers in his factory and forbids them from killing them because he does not want to loose money by training someone else. At first this might really be how he feels but eventually we begin to see him show compassion to jews and at a critical point in the war, he, with the help of his Jewish Sidekick, form a list of over 1000 jews that will be employed in his newest factory instead of going to Auschwitz. At this point his factory is making weapons. This of course seems like the greatest need of the society again, but we soon discover that Schindler secretly hopes his products will prove useless and it is now only a cover to help these Jews... The only problem is, his money begins to run out. If the war had not ended when it did, it is possible that Schindler's factory would have been shut down and who knows what would have happened to the jews?

So this begs the question, would it have been smarter to try harder for a more successful business in order to save more jews?
Or what would have happened if Schindler's heart had been broken sooner? Would less jews have been saved?
His selfishness in the beginning eventually led to the safety of 1100 people, does that justify the fact that he sat and watched as innocent people were murdered?

I dont blame Schindler or any other individual for everything that happened during this terrible time. I also realize that the weight of the world is not on our shoulders. At the end of the movie, the jews give Schindler a ring with this inscription: "He who saves the life of one man, saves the world entire." We say things like this a lot..."if so and so's life inspired one person it was all worth it." or "if this conference brings one person to Christ, our effort is not in vain." I think I have said this before, but I am not sure any of us really think that. I want to. And I hope we all can see the benefit of investing in one person, or the value of each individual, but we want so much more.