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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/arts/an-italian-saint-in-the-making-or-a-collaborator-with-nazis.html?ref=world

Gotta admire a guy that can get admired for like 70 years after his death for doing things he didn't do.

On a somewhat tangential subject, I wish people would stop labelling others as the X Schindler for saving Jews. There's this guy who was working for British intelligence who saved a huge bunch and got labelled in the press as 'The British Schindler' and it was noted that he 'saved more Jews than Schindler'.

This kind of talk is annoying on two levels. First, the fascination of the Schindler story is that he was PART of the system, and not on any level of trying to infiltrate it from the inside. He was a Nazi Party member (though mostly for convenience) who went to Poland to make a shedload of money (and did) and used forced Jewish labour because it was cheap; he got the initial investment by effectively intimidating it out of rich Jewish locals by saying "Give me all your money because what good is it to you now?'. Because he was a hard-headed businessman (and bon viveur) above all else, he valued his workers and tried to keep them safe. He was uninterested in anti-semitism but hardly a resistance man. So the story is how this man who had only had everything to lose by playing against the system but everything to gain by staying with it- indeed, he had more money than he could ever have spent- deliberately threw it all away in favour of people he had no such association with. He utterly destroyed his life and his future to get 'his' people out, but what he lost in practicality he gained in a spiritual fashion. It's a fantastically powerful piece of natural drama. It's actually relatively easy to find straight heroes (or possibly fake heroes in this case) who did heroic, life saving deeds and they should be greatly honoured, of course, but none of them can truly be compared to Schindler, by the very basic nature of what Schindler represents.

The other issue is much simpler; people should stop banging on about scale. One of the entire points of the Schindler mythology is that scale doesn't matter; the scene in the film where he finally breaks down because of a matter of how many handfuls of extra Jews he might have been able to get out is particularly poignant because of this. 'He who saves one life saves the world entire' is the saying they inscribed into Schindler's ring they gave him at the end, and that really is the point.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
On a somewhat tangential subject, I wish people would stop labelling others as the X Schindler for saving Jews. There's this guy who was working for British intelligence who saved a huge bunch and got labelled in the press as 'The British Schindler' and it was noted that he 'saved more Jews than Schindler'.

This kind of talk is annoying on two levels. First, the fascination of the Schindler story is that he was PART of the system, and not on any level of trying to infiltrate it from the inside. He was a Nazi Party member (though mostly for convenience) who went to Poland to make a shedload of money (and did) and used forced Jewish labour because it was cheap; he got the initial investment by effectively intimidating it out of rich Jewish locals by saying "Give me all your money because what good is it to you now?'. Because he was a hard-headed businessman (and bon viveur) above all else, he valued his workers and tried to keep them safe. He was uninterested in anti-semitism but hardly a resistance man. So the story is how this man who had only had everything to lose by playing against the system but everything to gain by staying with it- indeed, he had more money than he could ever have spent- deliberately threw it all away in favour of people he had no such association with. He utterly destroyed his life and his future to get 'his' people out, but what he lost in practicality he gained in a spiritual fashion. It's a fantastically powerful piece of natural drama. It's actually relatively easy to find straight heroes (or possibly fake heroes in this case) who did heroic, life saving deeds and they should be greatly honoured, of course, but none of them can truly be compared to Schindler, by the very basic nature of what Schindler represents.

The other issue is much simpler; people should stop banging on about scale. One of the entire points of the Schindler mythology is that scale doesn't matter; the scene in the film where he finally breaks down because of a matter of how many handfuls of extra Jews he might have been able to get out is particularly poignant because of this. 'He who saves one life saves the world entire' is the saying they inscribed into Schindler's ring they gave him at the end, and that really is the point.
I pretty much agree.

I find the concept behind the thread a bit confusing, we are surprised a Nazi was actually a Nazi even though they weren't always 100% cartoonish super-villains?

cool story OV, not trying to be critical of you, it just reminds me of the human inability to see people and events as morally grey.

actually, the stories of German nuclear physicists are very interesting for these reasons.

Originally posted by Oliver North
I find the concept behind the thread a bit confusing, we are surprised a Nazi was actually a Nazi even though they weren't always 100% cartoonish super-villains?

cool story OV, not trying to be critical of you, it just reminds me of the human inability to see people and events as morally grey.

actually, the stories of German nuclear physicists are very interesting for these reasons.

I think there might be some interest in how the myth, if myth it was, was established. The angle that it was pro-Italian propaganda in the post-Nazi period says something about that time.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
I think there might be some interest in how the myth, if myth it was, was established. The angle that it was pro-Italian propaganda in the post-Nazi period says something about that time.

oh, for sure, and the stuff about the Israeli's promoting these individuals to try and paint their own picture about the behaviour of people during the war is interesting as well, I wasn't trying to do one of those "how is this news?" type arguments at all.

As a psychologists, however, I do find the tendency for people to sort of believe in the "all or none" version of morality or personality interesting as well. The fact that we don't naturally assume that a Nazi, who might have saved some Jews, would actually be a Nazi demonstrates a lot about the biases humans have when judging people and situations. /shrug

I mean, sure, it isn't altogether the most surprising thing, but that's how I look at this story; I just get confused because I assume everyone has the same pedantic need for nuance as I do

Was being a Nazi a bad thing in the 1940's?

-Mitch

What interested me in the article is how people who need a hero will create one out of someone who may be an ordinary guy, or even amoral or morally reprehensible.

These sorts of myths can be incredibly destructive. The best example of that is the North Korean ruling family. Kim Il-Sung was by all (non-North Korean) accounts not a very important or successful resistance fighter against the Japanese, and had the Soviets never invaded Korea he'd probably have died by a Japanese firing squad, or disappeared into obscurity. Yet the Soviets saw in him a malleable puppet leader, and created a Stalinist (Stalin's revolutionary exploits, it should be noted, were similarly exaggerated when he came to power, though he probably had more cred than Kim) cult of personality around him, and look where the country (and the region) is now.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
What interested me in the article is how people who need a hero will create one out of someone who may be an ordinary guy, or even amoral or morally reprehensible.

These sorts of myths can be incredibly destructive. The best example of that is the North Korean ruling family. Kim Il-Sung was by all (non-North Korean) accounts not a very important or successful resistance fighter against the Japanese, and had the Soviets never invaded Korea he'd probably have died by a Japanese firing squad, or disappeared into obscurity. Yet the Soviets saw in him a malleable puppet leader, and created a Stalinist (Stalin's revolutionary exploits, it should be noted, were similarly exaggerated when he came to power, though he probably had more cred than Kim) cult of personality around him, and look where the country (and the region) is now.

They were holding out for a hero. He had to be strong, he had to be tough, he had to be larger thaN life.

-Mitch

Originally posted by soopercavell
They were holding out for a hero. He had to be strong, he had to be tough, he had to be larger thaN life.

-Mitch
The whole point was that he wasn't a hero, and that he didn't become "larger than life" by his own merit.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
The whole point was that he wasn't a hero, and that he didn't become "larger than life" by his own merit.

The whole point is, the people were holding out for one...... Everyone has skeletons, sadly many Nazi's also had lampshades made of skin as well as feet of clay.

Originally posted by Omega Vision
The whole point was that he wasn't a hero, and that he didn't become "larger than life" by his own merit.

He's quoting a Bonnie Tyler song.

Originally posted by Bardock42
He's quoting a Bonnie Tyler song.
Oh, that must have gotten caught by my crappy music filter.

I guess her songs must have totally eclipsed your heart.

So he's not the Italian Schindler, he's the Italian Mother Teresa?

Oh snap.