”Schlinder’s List”

“It is I who support the Other and am responsible for him. One thus sees that in the
human subject, at the same time as a total subjection, my primogeniture manifests itself. My
responsibility is untransferable, no one could replace me. In fact, it is a matter of saying the very
identity of the human I starting from responsibility, that is, starting from this position or deposition
of the sovereign I in self-consciousness, a deposition which is precisely its responsibility for the
Other. Responsibility is what is incumbent upon me exclusively, and what, humanly, I cannot refuse.
I am I in the sole measure that I am responsible, a non-interchangeable I." (pp. 100-101)

In the movie “The Schlinder’s List” directed by Steven Spielberg and written by
Steven Zaillian, Oskar Schindler a businessman who travelled to Krakow to try his luck by hiring
Jewish people as his staffs to start a factory of cookware and utensils with his financier Stern to help
him run the factory. According to Levinas, “The Other looks at me, I am responsible for him,
without even having taken on responsibilities for him; his responsibility is incumbent on me,” means
that looking at one's fellow man has the responsibility for his whole being. In relation to the movie,
Schlinder acts as the “direktor” of his company and there is one time when there was a machinist
who visited the direktor’s office several days just to thank Schlinder for giving him a job, the
machinist said “I want to thank you sir for giving me the opportunity to work. The SS beat me up.
They would have killed me, but I'm essential to the war effort, thanks to you.” In this scenario,
Schlinder is responsible to all of his workers before the war began and that being an “essential”
worker has an advantage and it means a lot to the Jews but in the first episodes of the film,
Schlinder’s perspective was to earn money but it changes when the episodic mistreatment to the
Jews happens.

Lieutenant Amon Goeth orders his men to empty the ghetto so the soldiers shoot and
kill many Jews in the process. Jews were overwhelmed with fear and anxiety as they were tortured
while watching their loved ones being burned and murdered. This massacre changes Schindler but
he continually bribes Goth just to stay on the good side of the SS, for Schlinder it was not that easy
because the second lieutenant Goth brutalizes and murdered everyone including Helen Hirsch, that
tragic event left a mark to Schlinder that is why he was so worried to the other Jews and then he
spots a young girl with a red coat which signifies the innocence of the girl that is trying to hide from
the Nazis but later Schlinder saw the dead body of the young girl on a wagon with the other recently
killed.

The mistreatment of the Nazis to the Jews eventually shifts Schindler’s perspective
from profiteering from the war to saving as many lives as he can that his actions lead to this
quotation, “To be human is to be responsible for the Other” denotes Schindler’s actions to rescue
over a thousand Jewish lives during the holocaust. As soon as the Germans begin losing the war,
Schlinder asks Goth to let him move his workers to a new factory and that Stern and Schlinder
created a list of people to be transferred in the new factory. Schlinder could have just leave his
workers but for him, saving them was his responsibility, the main character Oskar Schlinder showed
responsibility for the Other and that Other are his workers that are over 1,000 jews.

Schlinder’s power was very evident in the movie as his alliance to the Nazi’s even
though he doesn’t want to be on the SS side but he still continue to work on that side for the benefit
of his workers and for his responsibility for the Other and that affirms the term “My responsibility is
untransferable, no one could replace me,” that according to Levinas, the entire responsibility for the
Other rests with I alone. Just like the character of Oskar Schlinder, for him, it is his responsibility to
protect those who work with him. He realizes that his factory is the only thing preventing his staff
from being shipped to the death camps and Schindler still demands more workers and starts bribing
Nazi leaders to keep Jews on his employee lists and out of the camps. When the war ends, Schindler
losts his entire fortune but saved many people. He says goodbye to his workers, and heads west in
hopes of finding Americans to surrender to.

At the end of the war, Stern presents Oskar a gold ring with the inscription "whoever
saves one life, save the world entire” which also means “To be human is to be responsible for
Other”. At the end of the film he was declared as a righteous person by the council in Jerusalem and
he was invited to plant a tree in the Avenue of the Righteous. And Lieutenant Amon Goeth arrested
and hanged in Krakow for crimes against humanity. And Schlinder failed at his marriage and other
businesses after the war. The Schlinder Jews live their lives after the war in the present days and
many of the surviving workers visited Schindler’s grave and they place stones around his marker
which is the traditional Jewish sign of respect.