Ralph Fiennes once shared a deeply unsettling encounter he had with a Polish woman during the filming of “Schindler’s List.”
The movie portrays the story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved over a thousand predominantly Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust during the period from 1941 to 1945.
It provides a harsh examination of the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany during World War II.
Released in 1993, the film starred Liam Neeson as Schindler, with Ralph Fiennes portraying the ruthless Nazi officer Amon Göth.
Amon Göth was part of Hitler’s SS and was responsible for overseeing the horrific concentration camps where millions of Jews were murdered through torture, gas chambers, and forced labor.
Fiennes, who prepared thoroughly for his role in Steven Spielberg’s film, encountered something unexpected during his time in Poland.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Fiennes recounted a shocking interaction with a Polish woman he met while shooting the film.
Reflecting on his approach to his character, he said: “You have to be wary of labeling evil in a blanket way, as just evil.”
“I think that playing a part like that, you can’t judge it; I can’t look at the effect or the final result. I think one’s job is rather to look at the cause, rather than the symptom, if you like.”
“So I really put away, I pushed aside, the sense of ‘This man is evil. This man is a sadist.’”
He further explained: “I just started off with the premise that this is a man who was once a child in diapers and, somewhere along the line, events and ‘some vicious mole of nature’ in him took over his life and produced these actions which are horrific.”
Fiennes’ portrayal of the SS officer was so convincing that when he was filming on location, wearing his Nazi uniform, a passerby woman expressed aloud her wish for the Nazis ‘to be back here protecting us again’.
In Poland, Fiennes was reminded of how some people still held onto ‘Hitler’s obscene set of beliefs.’
He recounted an incident where a Polish woman approached him, smiling and talking.
Not understanding her language, Fiennes simply smiled in return.
A friend then translated her words: “She said, ‘The Germans were charming people, and they didn’t kill anyone who didn’t deserve it.’ “
Such remarks showed the lingering beliefs some held even decades after the war ended.
This was a chilling experience for the actor.
To effectively play Göth, Fiennes felt he needed to start afresh.
He explained: “I just sort of elbowed away this prejudice about Amon Göth. I found him vulnerable … not that he would know about it, but I sensed that there would be some sort of fracture or twist or canker in his psychological makeup or soul or whatever you want to call it that needed to find some palliative.”
“There’s a void inside him that needed to be filled with some sort of violence. … The closest he gets to knowing who he is is by brutality. Although I don’t for a minute think that Amon Göth is conscious of that himself.”
Fiennes’s depiction of Amon Göth earned him the best supporting actor accolades from the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle.