Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Spielberg: Holocaust Education Should Be Mandatory In Schools

NEW YORK (JTA) — Out of all his celebrated films, Steven Spielberg is most proud of “Schindler’s List,” the 1993 Oscar winner about a German businessman who saved over 1,000 Jews during the Holocaust.

The filmmaker made the claim at a Tribeca Film Festival event on Thursday marking the film’s 25th anniversary that brought him together with actors Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley and others involved in the movie.

“I have never felt, since ‘Schindler’s List,’ the kind of pride and satisfaction and sense of real, meaningful accomplishment — I haven’t felt that in any film post-‘Schindler’s List,’” Spielberg said.

The filming, which took place in Poland, took a toll on Spielberg and some of the cast, the director revealed. Neeson, who starred as Oskar Schindler, found the process “dangerous and unforgettable”; Spielberg needed regular calls from his friend Robin Williams to cope with the experience.

Two young Israeli actors had “breakdowns” on set after the filming of a scene in which Jewish women thought they were going to be killed in an Auschwitz gas chamber. Spielberg called the day in which actors were asked to strip naked before being marched around the camp set one of the most difficult of his career.

Spielberg and the crew experienced anti-Semitism firsthand during filming as well. Swastikas were painted near their set at one point, and Kingsley (who played Schindler’s Jewish accountant) stood up for an Israeli actor in a bar after a German-speaking man approached and asked if he was a Jew.

Spielberg, who said the process of making the film brought his “Jewish life pouring back” into his heart, also said he thinks Holocaust education should be more universal in the U.S.

“It’s not a pre-requisite to graduate high school, as it should be,” he said. “It should be part of the social science, social studies curriculum in every public high school in this country.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.