Interesting. I wasn't awed by it then and I think even less of it now. Spielberg certainly made a top-notch Spielberg film - pulling the strings of base emotions, clearly demarking heros and villans, etc. But it felt too Hollywood. It was clearly the 'serious movie Spielberg is making to get the Oscar his saccharine block-buster films never got. And the red coat thing was needlessly over the top.
I though Polanski's "The Pianist" was a much better movie on the subject of the holocaust.[/quote]

"Life is Beautiful" was a good one too, different, not as direct. Roberto Benigni won an Oscar for that movie.
Another Italian movie that I clearly remember, "Cinema Paradiso"