Setting the Scene Time: December 1993 Place: Movie theaters throughout the country People: Steven Spielberg: one of the most successful movie directors of all time; Oskar Schindler: an Austrian businessman; Leopold Pfefferberg: a Jewish Holocaust survivor; Thomas Keneally: an Australian novelist In 1947, a Polish Jew named Leopold Pfefferberg, who had survived the Holocaust, made a vow to make the story of Oskar Schindler famous. Schindler was a complex and contradictory man--an Austrian businessman and Nazi party member with a reputation for drinking and gambling. Yet Schindler, through every means possible and at risk to his own life, managed to convince the Nazi authorities not to harm the Jews who worked at his factory. As a result, more than 1,000 Jews escaped certain death in the concentration camps.

The real Oskar Schindler.

In this scene from Schindler's List, Liam Neeson looks over the shoulder of Ben Kingsley, who is typing a list of more than 1,000 Jewish workers to be placed under Schindler's protection.