schindler's list

Question

1) What is the significance of the "girl in red"? What does she represent or symbolize? Why is most of the movie in black and white, but this one person in color?

Answer 1

The answer is in the context.

Schindler notices the girl. He and his female friend are horseback riding.

We see her from his POV. She wanders amidst the Jews being rounded up and even executed.

Shortly later, she also is being rounded up, but she veers away and goes into a building.

Schindler's female friend urges him to continue their ride.

The music is children singing: it cannot possibly be coming from anywhere nearby. It is either commentary made by the filmmaker or a subjective impression of Schindler.

When we see the girl hiding in the building, the image is black-and-white.

The color red suggests that the girl is being noticed by Schindler.

When Schindler later sees the burnt and disfigured body of the girl with the coat, we and Schindler discover at the same moment that the girl has not survived in her hiding place.

You would have to look at where this later scene stands in relation to the rest of the movie to decide if this is a turning point for Schindler, or merely a small moment when he sees the cruelty of the Nazi regime.

It is somewhat surprising that the movie needs to show that the Nazi's are cruel by using the image of a child, as the movie is full of Nazi cruelty and criminality.