(CNN) More than two decades after "Schindler's List" first debuted, Steven Spielberg's award-winning film about the horrors of the Holocaust is returning to theaters.

"I think there is more at stake today than even back then," Spielberg said in an extended interview with NBC published Wednesday. "When collective hate organizes and gets industrialized, then genocide follows. We have to take it more seriously today than I think we have had to take it in a generation."

Spielberg's comments come in the wake of the October massacre at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in which 11 people were fatally shot.

"Schindler's List," which premiered in 1993, tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who helped save the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories.

The film won seven Academy Awards, including best picture and the Oscar for best director.

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