is the biography of Oskar Schindler, who is in actuality, simply a survivor too, a fact
that Keneally often hints at in the text. Oskar is a man who stands in the
movement of history, who “ ...felt a sense of a grand shift in history, and was
seduced by the itch to be party to it” (Keneally, 1982:43). One cannot help but feel
that Keneally has projected himself into the character of Oscar, who is transfigured
into an archetypal saviour figure, a transfiguration that seems to occur at the time
he meets I tzhak Stern (Keneally, 1982:62). However, Oskar and the totally evil
Amon Goeth are too often closely identified; “ ... there was a mutual knowingness
between them... as if they were soul brothers” (Keneally, 1982:184). I n fact, Amon
is later referred to as “ ... Oskar’s dark brother” (Keneally, 1982:185). Oscar is
described as “ ... a bounteous avatar who covers all eventualities” (Keneally,
1982:372), not only in the context of the mortal storm of Nazism that was
unleashed on humankind, but also that of the unconscious mind where everything is
seen as symbolic.
The emotive image of the child with the scarlet cape, perhaps facilitating an
imaginative association with Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf, enables
Keneally to make the statements that he otherwise fails to do with any conviction.
The Wafen SS guard is only a child himself except that he is slightly older and in
uniform, as was often the case in later Nazi Germany. Sometimes, however, these
children in uniform act with a brutality quite beyond their years, a point explicitly
made as a woman is shot, brutally, in full view of the ‘scarlet toddler’ and worse,
when a boy slides down the wall whimpering, “ ... as one of them...jammed a boot
on his head as if to hold it still and put the barrel (of a gun) against the back of the
neck – the recommended SS target – and fired” (Keneally, 1982:141)
Keneally begins by describing the child as the ‘scarlet toddler’ in this passage
but after the brutal execution uses the term ‘scarlet child’ (with echoes of
Hawthorne). The progression from toddler to child signifying that maturation has
taken place by being a witness to this experience. This is the same child who
displays a “ ... pitiably admirable cunning” (Keneally, 1982:145) in not calling to her
uncle; at three years of age she understands all the subtleties of adult interaction
and manipulation and deftly moves herself out of danger and into hiding. I t is the
children who maintain their dignity and innocence in this story. The images are of
thin, long-limbed, dark eyed children who suffer, metaphorically, at the hands of
older children, the latter of whom, with few exceptions, are caught in a nihilistic
movement, to surely themselves, later suffer a grotesque fate and spiritual death.
ron
(Ron)
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