Campbell- To Save for Morality

After watching Schindler’s List and Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg, I started thinking about how even though Schindler didn’t save thousands of Jews then and there, he did in the long run by saving the families to grow and prosper. The same can be said for Wallenberg except that he saved more than Schindler. However, I find that the individual person can do a little, but make a big difference.

Schindler was a businessman who just wanted money. He wanted cheap labor and a huge profit for that cheap labor. As his factory produced the supplies, the Nazi Party revered Schindler for what he was accomplishing. Schindler changed his ways of thinking after watching the massacre at Krakow and decided to save “his” Jews. As the story moves forward, however, Schindler wakes up and tries to stop the killing of “his” Jews. How does he do it? Not necessarily in the most smiled upon way. He is quiet about his intentions by bribing soldiers and even bribing Amon Göth into letting him move his workers and continue allowing them to work for him. He did what he could in the best way possible to also keep himself and his wife safe from the Nazi killings. Since he was so careful, he was able to live to an old age as well as be taken care of by someone, or a few someone’s, like “his” Jews.

Wallenberg saved many Jews, but he saved more in a different way. While Schindler was “under the table” with his intentions, Wallenberg wasn’t so much. Wallenberg passed out passports and took care of houses that the Swedish owned to save many Jews. I am not saying that Wallenberg was not secret about his motives, but I am saying that he was not as secret or as sneaky about what he was doing. With Wallenberg’s lack of the element of secrecy, Wallenberg died at a young age and no one knows much about his death. Schindler and Wallenberg did extraordinary work saving Jews. Anyone could have done extraordinary work saving the Jews, but it’s all a matter of moral fiber. Everyone has moral fiber, but when you look at the individual, how much moral fiber does one person have? Schindler had a smaller amount of moral fiber, I believe, than Wallenberg because, Schindler didn’t care in the beginning and was a money making kind of man. Wallenberg from the beginning had a ton of moral fiber because, like Dr. McCay said, he was brought up in a wealthy family, but he chose not to take advantage of that wealth. I think that each person who helped the Jews escape did it for their moral fiber and the people who didn’t help probably did it out of fear of being killed. It’s almost like you could do nothing, be a Schindler and bribe your way to help the Jews and yourself, or be a Wallenberg and purposefully reach out to as many Jews as possible rather than the ones you are with on a daily basis.