Schindler's List screening to include question session with Academy Award winning producer

It’s been nearly two decades since Gerald Molen co-produced the movie “Schindler’s List,” but he believes the message of the movie is just as important today and one people should take in again.

“I think that it’s important for people to understand history,” Molen said. “If everyone has already seen it (“Schindler’s List”) once, they should see it again. It is a story that needs to regenerate. It is a story of a dark time, and it shows the difference that one person can make on a large group of people.”

At 6 p.m. on Saturday, Crossroads Church in Bigfork will show the movie in its entirety at no cost, and afterwards Molen will respond to questions from the audience.

Teaching about the Holocaust and the surrounding time period has become a common event for Molen. He is often asked to teach in classrooms and share his knowledge with different groups.

“I feel good about it because it’s something I’ve lived with for the last 18 years,” Molen said of Saturday’s upcoming showing. “There’s never enough that can be said about the story and the lessons that the story shows.”

Molen, who won an Academy Award for his work with the film, had basic knowledge of the Holocaust prior to working on the film. However, when Steven Spielberg approached him about making “Schindler’s List” after the two had completed work on the movie “Jurassic Park,” Molen dove deeper into educating himself on the topic.

“It created almost like a hunger to find out more and learn more about what that was all about,” Molen said. “To me it was a blessing to get to be a part of it, to have my name on it and to get to help get the job done.”

He is especially proud of the movie because of the lives it has helped indirectly as well as directly.

“I’m very proud of the movie. It reached out to a heck of a lot of people around the world,” Molen said.

He noted that many survivors stepped forward and shared their stories for the first time following the release of the film, which also helped unite family members who were separated during the Holocaust.

“We can learn so many lessons from the past,” Molen said. “In fact, those lessons are what help guide us today ... If you look around and you see what’s going on in the world today, and even in our own country, anti-Semitism is on the rise again. So anything that can be done to help with bigotry and hatred should be done. This film speaks to that so well.”