10/23: Root: "Schindler's List"--The Girl in the Red Coat

"Oskar Schindler witnessed with his girlfriend, his girlfriend secretary, he witnessed, the liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto. He was horseback riding, he heard all the noise, he heard all of the vehicles. What the audience sees, looking down from his point of view, is what Schindler saw 56 or so years ago from the time we shot this sequence. He watched for a long time before turning around. He saw the little girl in red. And he wondered why didn't the Nazis, who were rounding up and shooting up anybody who resisted, why the most obvious person, wearing the loudest coat, the coat that was crying out to be captured, and put into a truck, why the Nazis were gathering everybody else but this little, bright red spot, moving down the street."
-Steven Spielberg

            I was there, transported from my comfy couch halfway into the 3 hour movie, to that cold day. I was the girl in the red coat aimlessly wandering the streets of the Ghetto; oblivious to the murder and terror around me as I try to find a hiding place from the Nazis. I keep moving, the Nazis are completely oblivious to me, even though I’m wearing a bright red coat.

Schindler’s List is just one of the many films about Nazi Germany and the Holocaust that are out there. However there’s something different about it.

            The entire film is black and white. Except for some parts of color, one being my coat. Why is my coat red, what was the reason behind the color choice? Red. Out of all of the colors, red.

   I am real. I am based off of a true story. I am real, my red coat and I. Oskar Schindler saw me from on top of a hill.

            As I keep going against the flow of the other members of the Ghetto, I admire my coat. It’s a tad bit too small, but that’s what we could afford, and the wool material is itchy, but so warm. The beautiful color can catch anyone’s eye.

            I continue walking. I just want to escape, to be anywhere but here. I want to be back in a time where I didn’t have to be frightened if I was going to die one day or the next.

            Then I wonder: why hasn’t anyone stopping me yet? I’m dressed in a bright red coat, how are they not seeing me and loading me into a truck for deportation? Do they feel bad for me? Am I invisible?

                                       

I look up at the hill, just beyond the Ghetto, and I see a man on horseback. He is staring at the chaos, but he is also staring at me. Do I mean something to him? Does he realize that the torture and slaughter of Jews are real?

            He does now.

            I keep on walking; past the murder of many people, past the loading and shuffling of people into trucks. My coat is the definition of the innocent Jews and Oskar Schindler. I am the symbol of the 6 million victims of the Holocaust that were slaughtered by the Nazis. I’m the rare opposition of Nazis and their practices and the innocence that they are destroying.

I found one a hiding spot.

Finally.

Keep quiet, they can’t get me if I’m quiet.

The scene cuts there and I imagine what happens next with the girl in the red coat.

Everything comes at me like a blur. Next thing I know, I’m on a train to somewhere. I just don’t know where. I know that this isn’t going to end well, I just know it.

It doesn’t. I’m on my way to my death, me and my red coat.

            When I arrive, they don’t take my red coat. Weird. They line all of the children up. It’s cold out. I hear a bang, screams, and then silence. And all goes black.

            I’m watching from above now. I can see my red coat, being carried on a wheelbarrow, where is it going? I smell something rotten: the bodies of other innocent victims being burned. My red coat is next. It catches the flames, and sizzles. The death of my red coat and I are a symbol of the loss of innocence. The loss of over 6 million people who were innocently slaughtered in the concentration camps. My red coat is no more. I'm back on my couch now. 

           

Work Cited: "The Girl in Red." The Girl in Red. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.
"World War 2, The Little Girl In Red and Oscar Schindler." World War 2, The Little Girl In Red and Oscar Schindler. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Oct. 2015.
"Steven Spielberg on Schindler's List." YouTube. YouTube, n.d. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.