Schindler is portrayed as a very materialistic man at the beginning of the movie, but over time as he observes the inhuman treatment of the Jewish people by the Nazis, it starts to have an impact on him as he decides to go out of his way to protect his Jewish workers and later on dives into the mission of saving more Jews by again lavishly bribing the authorities, which seemed very ironic. His goal was to become a millionaire, but by the end of the war he risks his life to save more Jews and defrauds the Nazis with a munitions factory which never really produces any sort of shell that he assured he would produce for the Nazi military.
But what made him change from being an extreme mercenary to an exceptional benefactor? Well, Spielberg, being Spielberg, does not let his movie answer the question directly. The stereotype exists that most of the American directors tend to favor the Jews in their films and exposing a sort of institutional bias. But when it comes to the Holocaust, one cannot bring up that stereotype whatsoever. However, credit to Spielberg, he did manage to give the audience a clear picture about how the Jewish people actually had a very good control over the business and economy in Europe back then. Characters like Itzhkar Stern, played by Kingsley, and Poldek Pfefferberg, by Jonathan Segal, were the shrewdest minds who operated in the black market and it was quite evident in the movie that they had considerable experience and power in the financial world before World War II. We could see the expertise Itzhkar had as an accountant and as a business mind. Much of the initial fortune Oskar earned from his enamelware factory was mainly down to him. .
During our lectures, our discussions were based on the history of World War II from a macro point of view, but this movie was shown on a micro-level.