Russian Ice Princess’s ‘Schindler’ Moment
Image by getty images
By Talia Lavin February 10, 2014
(JTA) — Julia Lipnitskaia, a 15-year-old Russian skating prodigy, took home the Olympic gold with a routine set to John Williams’ “Theme from Schindler’s List.”
Lipnitskaia skated in a red costume meant to evoke the iconic “girl in the red coat,” who briefly appears in the movie “Schindler’s List” to enhance the pathos of a scene of the liquidation of Krakow’s ghetto.
For many, the slender girl’s soundtrack choice struck a sour note in an otherwise breathtaking routine. “Schindler’s List on Ice,” as one member of the Twitterati called it, was, for some, another strange element in an already bizarre Olympics that has been plagued by malfunctioning snowflakes, toilet troubles and political unrest. Max Fisher, a foreign affairs blogger at the Washington Post, had a typical reaction:
As Justin Peters pointed out on Slate, Lipnitskaia is far from the first figure skater to use music from “Schindler’s List” for a routine. The movie’s wrenching resonance suits skating’s exaggerated emotional beats.
While it’s hard to deny that the sight of a glittery-Spandex-clad interpretation of “Schindler’s List” does push some iffy buttons, it’s important not to conflate Spielberg’s movie with the Holocaust itself. “Schindler’s List” is significant for raising and sustaining awareness of the Holocaust and its hidden heroes, but using a Hollywood film theme in a figure skating routine is not necessarily any kind of desecration. The red coat-clad girl Lipnitskaia riffed on was a fictional creation, meant to pull on audience’s heartstrings, to a soundtrack of Yiddish folk song.
Strong detractors of Lipnitskaia’s routine might need to be reminded that Spielberg’s creation is just that — a masterfully crafted work of fiction representing the Holocaust, not a historical artifact, and not, indeed, history itself.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
