Lesson from Schindler's List

Thirty years ago Steven Spielberg’s award winning holocaust film and cautionary tale, Schindler's List hit the big screen. It was 1994, fifty years after the devastation and havoc that the Nazis wreaked on Europe and particularly on the Jewish people. It served as a morality tale about the dangers of subscribing to atheistic, social-political philosophies which see human beings as purely material. The film sheds light on the fact that six million Jews and other enemies of the Hitler’s perverse regime ultimately perished at the hands of hard core Eugenicists and Darwinists. 

At a time when the goal of the German government was to treat human beings like race horses bred to dominate the rest of the world as Ubermensch or ‘super human’, Oscar Schindler’s workers were people who were dehumanized. Stripped of their God-given identity as ‘made in the image of God’ they were now judged  by atheistic men who viewed other men as ‘tool producing animals’, reduced to the value of their economic production. This value judgment began in the form of a blue label attached to people as either ‘essential’ or ‘non-essential’. 

The most ardent Darwinist would have been proud of the Nazis' efficiency. In labeling people as 'non-essential' they were simply following the natural selection law of ‘survival of the fittest’. Afterall, they saw themselves as merely advancing human evolution by sending the 'non-essentials' straight to the ovens.

Do you remember this scene?                  

“I'm a teacher”. The man tries to hand over documentation supporting the claim along with his ID card to a German clerk.

“Not essential work, stand over there", responded the Nazi clerk.

Over there, other "non-essential people" are climbing onto trucks bound for unknown destinations. The teacher reluctantly relinquishes his place in line. 

The teacher returns to the head of the line again, but this time with Stern at his side.                                                   

“I'm a metal polisher.” he declares.

He hands over a piece of paper. The clerk takes a look, is satisfied with it, brushes glue on the back of a blue sticker and sticks it to the man's work card.

The clerk responds, “Good.”  The teacher thinks to himself, “The world's gone mad”.

After Schindler's workers are rounded up and taken to Auschwitz, Schindler is pleading for their life trying to convince the SS guards that these people are ‘essential workers’. 

A horrified cry suddenly breaks through the noise of the engines. One of Schindler's women, locked in, sees her son among those coming down off the train on the opposing track. Schindler becomes aware of what's happening and, passing over other children, tries to corral these particular boys, many of whom have noticed their mothers now and are echoing their tortured cries with their own.

Schindler manages to gather them together, the fifteen or  twenty boys, and, in the middle of the crowded platform. Schindler says to the SS guard, “These are mine. They're on the list. These are my workers. They should be on the train. He points across to the women's train, then down to the boys. 

With desperation in his voice he pleads to save their lives, “They're skilled munition workers. They're essential!”

Reluctantly, the SS guard sends the boys back with Schindler. 

Inspite of it being a tremendous movie, Schindlers List failed as a cautionary tale. Just thirty years after it came out, we too in America were going full Nazi and labeling people 'essential' and 'non-essential'.

Sadly, and with disgust, we recall that it was only a few years ago that our own ’leaders’ in the West were labeling Marijuana merchants as ‘essential’ for in person contact while school teachers were branded as ‘non-essential’. Shopping at Walmart- ‘essential’, small business owners and worshiping God at church -’non-essential’. You get the idea. 

Who the heck did they think they were to make such a value judgment for all of us? Some might say, "Well it was a matter of safety". I would remind them of Ronald Reagan's famous quote: "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help." I would add another two terrifying government words, 'Essential Worker'. 

To reduce the value of a human being in those terms is remiscent of the not too distant past. Were they unaware of the 20th century? Are they ignorant of the atheistic regimes that wiped out millions of people under the banner of both Communism and Nazism? Did they not study WWII history? Or minimally, at the very least did they not see Schindler’s List? 

In Chicago, they are so tone deaf that they still have up online the rules declaring who is 'essential' and who is not.  

We are destined to repeat history when we fail to learn from our mistakes. Learning from our mistakes means speaking and writing about what really happened, NOT sweeping it under the rug. For those who believe in God, no human being can be labeled ‘non-essential’.