Polish Woman’s Chilling Response To Ralph Fiennes In SS Uniform During Schindler's List Filming

Ralph Fiennes once shared the unsettling encounter he had with a Polish woman while filming Schindler’s List, and her words have stuck with him ever since.

The film tells the true story of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist who saved more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust during World War II.

It presents a raw and powerful look at the horrors of Nazi Germany and the unimaginable suffering inflicted on innocent people.

In this 1993 film, Liam Neeson portrayed Schindler, while Ralph Fiennes took on the role of Amon Göth, a ruthless Nazi officer.

Göth was a high-ranking member of Adolf Hitler's SS, responsible for overseeing the brutal concentration camps that led to the deaths of millions of Jewish individuals through torture, forced labor, and gas chambers.

While Fiennes had deeply researched his role for Steven Spielberg’s film, he was unprepared for some of the real-life reactions he encountered while filming in Poland.

Schindler's List was critically acclaimed Universal Pictures

Fiennes spoke with The Washington Post about a disturbing encounter he had with a Polish woman during filming.

He reflected on his thoughts about portraying his character, saying, "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 added more insight into his approach, saying, "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’s portrayal of the SS officer was incredibly realistic. While filming in uniform on the streets, a random woman yelled down to him, expressing a wish for the Nazis to "be back here protecting us again."

Fiennes mentioned that his time in Poland reminded him of the lingering effects of "Hitler's twisted beliefs" on some individuals.

He recounted how a Polish woman approached him, smiling, nodding, and chatting with him as if he were truly part of the Nazi regime.

Since he didn’t speak Polish, Fiennes simply returned her smile, not understanding her words.

A friend translated her statement: "She said, 'The Germans were charming people, and they didn't kill anyone who didn't deserve it.' "

It was a sobering reminder of the beliefs some people still held, even decades after the war had ended.

For Fiennes, the moment was deeply unsettling and left him feeling uneasy.

Ralph Fiennes played a cruel real-life man Universal Pictures

To embody such a disturbing character, Fiennes felt he had to approach the role with a fresh perspective, avoiding preconceived judgments.

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 intense and haunting portrayal of Amon Göth earned him the Best Supporting Actor award from both the National Society of Film Critics and the New York Film Critics Circle.