2 things I did well: I used great transition words and I made sure all my writing was relevant to what I was talking about.

2 Things I need to improve on: I repeated myself quite a bit and I believe that if I didn’t repeat myself then I would have been able to get a higher mark. The second thing I can improve on is that I could organize my paragraphs a little better by not using the 3rd body paragraph

Matej Mladenovic

Mrs.Thomasen

Nov 21, 2019

Success and Failure While Trying to Do Good

In WWII, many people’s lives were changed and impacted by the actions of specific people. Schindlers Listdirected by Steven Spielberg is set in the 1940s in Nazi Germany. The main character Oskar Schindler who is a war profiteer and changes his thoughts about Jewish people throughout the main conflict of the story: WWII. The movie Boy in the Striped Pajamas directed by Mark Herman is set at the same time period as Schindlers List and takes place in Germany and Poland. The little boy Bruno is the main character and has no clue what is going on until he goes exploring and learns about what is going on himself. Schindlers List and the Boy in the Striped Pajamas both show how despite being forced to be affiliated with Nazis, one can still try to help Jewish people out. In Schindlers List,Schindler’s feelings about Jews changes and realizes that he could have saved many more Jewish people by being unselfish and not caring as much about his business. Meanwhile in The Boy in Striped Pajamas, Bruno starts questioning what the Nazi’s are doing and tries to help a little Jewish boy find his father even though he was not supposed to. While both are similar, Schindler develops in the movie and changes while actually saving many Jewish people, while Bruno is too young to understand what’s going on and dies trying to save someone. Nevertheless, both show that just because they were forced to hate Jewish people, they could still try to use their good will and help them.

While WWII had a great impact on both characters, Schindler was clearly impacted more and developed more than Bruno did. Schindler greatly changes and develops from the events of WWII for the better by takings risks with his company and himself. Firstly, Schindler starts off as a Nazi war profiteer who only cared about money and his business. But by having Jewish people as his workers he built relationships with them and specifically his accountant Itzhak Stern. So, when the Jewish people get taken from him and sent to the camps, he was not happy at all. Schindler tells Goeth, “These are my people. I want my people!” (Spielberg). By saying this he felt that the Jewish people he had were his people and he wanted them back. He proves how bad he wants his workers back by making a list of all their names and having to pay for every single one. But when he makes a minor mistake and all of the women that he bought are sent to Auschwitz he proves that he is willing to do anything to get his workers back by driving all the way there to retrieve them. Once Germany surrenders and his factory comes to a close, he sees how many Jewish people he saved and realizes that he could have saved many more. Schindler says, “I could have gotten one more person, and I didn’t,” (Spielberg). What he realized in this moment is that if he did not care about his business and the money as much then he did, he could have been able to save so many more Jewish people. Schindler greatly develops and changes in this movie specifically from only caring about his business to actually caring about the people and saving their lives.

Although Schindler develops more than Bruno, Bruno still has a change of thought and learns about what is really going on in WWII with the Jewish people. Firstly, when Bruno looks through the window one day and sees something burning in a factory, he starts to question what his family was there for. Subsequently when a Jewish man comes into the house Bruno once again starts asking what is going on and his father tells him that Jewish people are the enemy. But when Bruno goes exploring, he goes next to the camp site and finds a Jewish boy who happens to be his age. He builds a great relationship with the boy and has found a friend, but when he goes back to the house Herr Liszt says, “I think, Bruno, if you ever found a nice Jew, you would be the best explorer in the world.” (Herman). So even though Bruno feels like he has found a nice Jewish kid, everyone around him is telling him that there are no nice Jewish people and that they are the enemy in the war they are fighting. Although Bruno is forced to hate and to not be friends with the little boy he still goes to the boy and becomes friends with him and shows that he still has good will in himself. Bruno realizes this and says, “We’re not supposed to be friends you and me. We’re meant to be enemies.” (Herman). This furthermore proves that although he is supposed to hate the Jewish people he goes against the Nazi beliefs and still tries to help the kid even though he ends up dying while trying to help the child because he did not understand what he was getting himself into by going into the camp.

Although both movies greatly showed the impact of WWII on both characters, putting them side by side. Firstly, Bruno remains pretty static throughout the movie and does not actually save or impact anyone’s life for the better. On the other hand, Schindler saves over 1000 peoples live and clearly changes in the story from only caring about his business to actually liking the Jewish people, and saving their lives despite losing his money in the process. The most obvious proof of Schindler changing and developing is at the end of the movie when he starts crying because he did not save enough even though at the beginning of the movie, he did not care about them at all. Schindler says, “I didn’t do enough!” (Spielberg). With saying this he shows that he felt like he could have saved even more people which is a vast difference from the beginning where he only cared about his money and could not care less about the Jewish people. With Schindler doing this act of saving so many Jewish people and his actions are still remembered to this day. The easiest way to compare Bruno to Schindler is that Bruno also tries to help the Jewish out but does not succeed and ends up dying while trying to save the kid, but unlike Schindler, Bruno remains static throughout the movie and his perspective and thoughts about what’s happening never changes. Bruno says, “I don’t understand. One man caused all this trouble?” (Herman). This furthermore proves that Bruno had no clue what was going on this whole time and that he never found out what was really going on inside the camp until he went himself. Consequently, Bruno ends up dying inside the camp because he did not know the truth about it and went in blindly.

In conclusion, both movies show how despite being forced to be affiliated with Nazis, one can still try to help Jewish people out, but while both are similar, Schindler develops in the movie and changes while actually saving many Jewish people, while Bruno is too young to understand what’s going on and dies trying to save someone. Schindler begins as a war profiteer who only cares about money and did not care about the Jewish people to building relationships and ended up saving over 1000 Jewish people by buying them back from the camps. On the other hand, Bruno had been told that the Jewish were the enemy, but he did not understand why and ended up making a Jewish friend, but since he never really understood what was going on, he went into the camp blindly and died. Both characters encourage doing what one thinks is right and not hating someone just because one is forced to because it is important to do the right thing.

Works Cited

Spielberg, Steven, director. Schindler’s List. Universal Pictures, 1993.

Herman, Mark, director. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.Miramax, 2009