Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Fred Ferber - September 11 & 25, 2001

Reaction to Schindler's List

Let me ask first, did you see Schindler's List?

I did.

That's very graphic in that movie.

Yes.

What did you think when you saw that?

Well, as graphic as it was, it was beautiful deve...beautifully developed because if, if you would show anymore--he left a lot to the imagination yet. If it would be fully developed people would throw up, would walk out of the [pause] would uh, walk out of the movie. This particular day was a day where as I stated before no one could go on the streets, eh. People were shot at will in the hospital. People were uh, the doctors and the patients were, were shot. Anyone who could not make it was put out of. It was some...it was something hard to describe because when you hear about children being thrown against the wall, what, you see mothers you see out of the window, which you were afraid to look, but we did, you see children torn out of mothers' hands. And the mother holds up to the child and, and the guy whips her, let, let the child go, let the child go, she does not uh, let the child go. Then she pulls out the child out of her, kills the child, kills her, throw the child out. It, it was, it was monstrosity. So Schindler List was a beautiful movie because expressed the terrible times. But expressed it in a way that a human mind can comprehend.

You saw that happen?

I--that's correct. I, I've seen it a great number of times and, and, and uh, not just in ghetto, but later on in Płaszów. Because things got progressively worse, uh. Uh, one, two, two members of my family uh, three members of my family survived Schindler's, in Schindler's place. So Schindler is the real thing. Uh, my aunt Cyla, who was interviewed by you I, I believe at one time, Cyla Wiener. She survived uh, Schindler's. My grandfather, and one of my cousins. Uh, so we made it to the Płaszów concentration camp.


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