From Schindler’s List and Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg, the idea that just one person cannot make a difference is dramatically disproven. Also, both films challenge what we may subjectively define as a “good” person.
In Schindler’s List, German businessman Oskar Schindler begins the movie as a protagonist who is after one thing and one thing only: financial success. Schindler goes to Krakow, Poland hoping to make money from being a war profiteer. Once in Krakow, he meets Itzhak Stern, a member of the Jewish Council. Stern offers Schindler money for the factory in exchange for a share of the war items that the factory will produce. Schindler agrees. He goes on to hire Jewish workers for his factory because of their willingness to work for cheap labor. A short time after Schindler’s factory is up and running, Operation Reinhard is implemented in Krakow and hundreds of Jews are killed in the area. Schindler is devastated by these mass killings occurring, and commits himself to use his large fortune from the factories to bribe SS soldiers to keep his Jewish workers safe from being killed. He comprises a list of his own workers to be kept off the trains to Auschwitz when the Final Solution, the extermination of all Jews, is implemented in Krakow. In Good Evening, Mr. Wallenberg, Swedish businessman Raoul Wallenberg plays a similar role in persevering to save countless Jewish lives in Budapest. He uses any means he can think of to help save as many Jews as he can, including obtaining passports, a risky endeavor in this context.
Again, the idea that just one person cannot make a difference is dramatically disproven in these two films. Both Schindler and Wallenberg’s actions portrayed in these films challenges us to redefine how we might describe someone as “good.” To describe ourselves as “good” people or to describe someone we know as a “good” person is entirely subjective. What are we describing as “good” when we say this about ourselves? Is it due to the fact that we’re nice to people around us and volunteer at a soup kitchen every week? Does describing someone else as a “good” person only apply to that person because he or she is constantly there for us or does something positive in relationship to our own lives? The answers to these questions are endless, and again, entirely subjective. However, what if the description of someone as “good” could have a concrete, objective definition? Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg may likely be the concrete examples of “goodness” in its objective sense. An objective definition of a “good” person, considering the lives of Schindler and Wallenberg, may read something like this: one who utilizes his words and actions to assist another person in any way possible, for the sole reason that that person is a human being, and regardless of the risks that this assistance may have on the assister.
Good-morally excellent, satisfactory in quality. The key word I moral. Whether or not someone is “good” depends on his or her morals. You are right that calling someone good is subjective because there are many answers to the question what is good? Wallenberg and Schindler did what they could to fit their morals. It is true that Wallenberg did more than Schindler to save lives, but what if Schindler did not even help the Jews in the way that he did? Helping anyone in anyway possible, whether the results in the long run are better than before, makes a person “good.” Schindler saved hundreds through his efforts. Wallenberg saved thousands through his efforts. In the long run, both men saved countless lives and to question their morals and question whether or not they are true “good” people is not what needs to be asked. What needs to be asked is what would have happened if they did not do what they did to save the lives that they could?
ReplyDeleteI thought that your definition of a good person was well rationalized. In the light of the overall good that these men did their personal failures, i.e., Schindler being a womanizer, makes much less of a difference in defining their character than your average person who didn't risk their life to save thousands. It is a reality that those people who put their own lives on the line to save others often feel as though they didn't do enough, like vets who save the lives of other soldiers, firefighters, and policemen. But to outside observation the man or woman who runs into those type of situations warrants our elicit positive response regardless of the fact that some are left behind. But with that in mind I would like to posit that this definition of goodness takes on a special meaning when dealing with men like Schindler and Wallenberg because they are not just saving lives because it is their job, but because they see what the world around them is doing is wrong and feel compelled to right it.
ReplyDeleteI think you need to do a bit more with Raoul Wallenberg. What he did save over 20,000 Hungarian Jews who would have been summarily liquidated. Discuss his strategies a bit more fully.
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