Schindler’s List
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Plot Overview
Schindler’s List opens with a close-up of unidentified hands lighting a pair of
Shabbat (Sabbath) candles, followed by the sound of a Hebrew prayer blessing the
candles. This scene, one of only a handful of color scenes in the film, closes as
the flames flicker out. The wisp of smoke from the dying flames fades into the
next scene, now in black and white, and becomes a plume of smoke from a steam
engine. A folding table is set up on a train platform, where a single Jewish family
registers as Jews. The single table becomes many tables, and the single family
becomes a large crowd. Close-up images of names being typed into lists provide
a sense of the vast number of Jews arriving in Kraków.
Oskar Schindler appears in his Kraków hotel room. His face is not shown, and the
focus is on his possessions. He puts on his expensive watch, cuff links, and Nazi
Party pin, and takes a large wad of bills from his night table. Schindler then enters
a nightclub. Once he is seated, a high-ranking Nazi official at a nearby table
catches his attention. Attempting to ingratiate himself with the local Nazis in
order to secure lucrative war contracts, Schindler sends drinks to the table. Before
long, he is treating a large table of Nazis and their friends to expensive food and
fine wine. Schindler has his picture taken with everyone important at the table, as
well as with dancers at the club.
Schindler next visits the Judenrat, the Jewish council charged with carrying out
Nazi orders in Kraków. He walks directly to the front of a seemingly endless line
of Jews, where he finds his accountant, Itzhak Stern. Schindler tells Stern that he
needs investors, “Jews,” to help him buy an enamelware factory. Since Jews, by
law, cannot own businesses, Schindler tells Stern that he will pay the investors in
product, not money. A profiteer, Schindler knows that he will maximize his profit
if he does not have to pay the Jewish investors in cash. He also wants Stern to run
the business, but Stern initially refuses the offer, telling Schindler that the Jews
will not be interested in investing.
Schindler, however, does not give up. Next, he visits a church where Jewish
smugglers conduct business. All of the smugglers, except one named Poldek
Pfefferberg, are scared off. Schindler tells Pfefferberg he will need lots of luxury
items in the coming months, and Pfefferberg promises to procure them.
The scene then changes to one of masses of Jews walking over a bridge. Their
armbands stand out starkly. It is March 20, 1941—the deadline for Jews to enter
the ghetto. A little Polish girl in the street shouts, “Good-bye, Jews,” over and over
again. While Schindler arrives at his new luxury apartment, recently vacated by the
Nussbaum family, the Nussbaums themselves arrive in the ghetto with thousands
of other uprooted families.
Schindler finally secures money from the Jewish investors, who agree to accept
goods as payment, because, as Schindler points out, money will be worthless in
the ghetto. Schindler sets up his factory with Stern’s help and hires Jews, rather
Schindler’s List
than Poles, because they are cheaper to employ. Workers at the factory will be
deemed “essential”—a status that saves them from removal to death camps. Stern
recognizes this fact immediately and fills the factory with many Jewish workers
whom the Nazis would otherwise have deemed expendable.
At this point, Schindler is unaware that Stern is using his position in the factory to
save people. His awareness grows, however, when Stern brings to see him a onearmed man who wants to thank Schindler for saving him by making him
“essential.” Schindler dismisses the gratitude and chastises Stern for bringing the
man to see him. Shortly after the scolding, Schindler has to rescue Stern himself
from a train bound for a death camp.
Meanwhile, construction on the Plaszów labor camp begins, and Amon Goeth
appears. Goeth, a sadistic Nazi, is charged with building and running the camp.
When Plaszów is completed, the Jews are evacuated from the Kraków ghetto and
sent to the camp. From a hill high above the ghetto, Schindler and his girlfriend
watch the destruction. He sees a little girl in a red coat—the only color in the
otherwise black-and-white scene—walking through the carnage. Schindler’s
girlfriend tearfully begs him to go home, and Schindler is obviously moved by
what he sees. Schindler convinces Goeth to allow him to build his own subcamp to
house his factory workers.
Schindler begins to participate actively in saving Jews when Regina Perlman, a
Jewish girl passing as a gentile, visits his office. She begs Schindler to hire her
parents because she has heard that his factory is a haven. He refuses to help and
sends her away. Later, he yells at Stern and tells him he is not in the business of
saving people. But when Schindler finishes his tirade, he gives Stern his gold
watch and tells him to bring the Perlmans over. With this decision, he begins to
actively save Jews. Over time, Schindler gives Stern more and more of his own
personal items to use for bribes to bring people to his factory.
Some time later, Goeth is charged with evacuating Plaszów and exhuming and
burning the bodies of 10,000 Jews killed there and at the Kraków ghetto.
Schindler realizes that his workers, Stern included, face certain death at the hands
of the Nazis, so he decides to spend his fortune to save as many Jews as he can.
With that, Schindler begins to make his list. He persuades Goeth to sell him his
workers, as well as Goeth’s maid, Helen Hirsch, to work in his factory in
Czechoslovakia. The men and women are transported to Czechoslovakia on two
separate trains, however, and the women are inadvertently diverted to Auschwitz,
where Schindler is forced to buy them again. The men and women are reunited at
the factory, where they remain until the war’s end.
When the war ends, Schindler tells his workers they are now free but that he will
be hunted as a war criminal and must flee at midnight. When he bids his
Schindlerjuden good-bye, they give him a ring made from the gold tooth work of
a factory worker, engraved with the Talmudic phrase, “Whoever saves one life
saves the world entire.” Schindler breaks down, crying that he could have
sacrificed more, saved more lives. He and his wife then flee.
Schindler’s List
The next morning, a single Russian soldier enters the camp and tells the Jews they
are free. As they walk toward a nearby town, the scene dissolves into full color
and reveals a group of real Holocaust survivors walking across a field. They line
up, many accompanied by the actors who play them, and place rocks on
Schindler’s grave. The last person at the grave is Liam Neeson (Oskar Schindler).
He places a rose on the tombstone.
Schindler’s Ark:
In 1982 Thomas Keneally wrote Schindler's Ark, the book on which the film is based.
Although based in fact, it won a prize for fiction. This caused a certain amount of
controversy at the time.
The main events of SCHINDLER’S LIST take place around the ancient city of Krakow in
Poland. Krakow had been one of the most important Jewish communities in Europe since
the early fourteenth century. By 1939 the Jewish population of the city was around 60,000
(out of a total population of the town of 250,000).Between the wars the Jewish community
had continued to flourish, although the increase in Polish anti-Semitism had certainly had
its effects on the community.
Anti-Semitism hostility to or prejudice against Jews.
Task 1
What evidence are you given in SCHINDLER’S LIST of the anti-Semitic nature of some
Poles?
Task 2
When you have seen SCHINDLER’S LIST, try to say what impression was given of life in
the ghetto? What were the key things needed to survive? What were the main problems
that the Jewish population of the ghetto had to face?
Task 3
Oskar Schindler arrived in Krakow in late 1939. From what you have seen in
SCHINDLER’S LIST, what seem to have been the things that attracted him to Krakow?
What did he hope to do in his time in the city?
Task 4
With the transfer of the Jews to the Plaszow work camp, how do we see Oskar Schindler
helping his own “chosen” Jews? How does he try to ensure that they stand a chance of
survival? In what ways was the final liquidation of the ghetto important as a turning point in
Schindler’s life?
Task 5
When does Schindler make the decision to rescue Jews?
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Task 6
Why do you think Schindler risked his life to save Jews? Did he do it to please others or to
please himself?
Task 7
What is the central theme of the film, Schindler’s List?
full title · Schindler’s List
director · Steven Spielberg
leading actors · Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Liam Neeson
supporting actors/actresses · Ezra Dagan, Embeth Davidtz, Miri Fabian, Caroline
Goodall, Michael Gordon, Aldona Grochal, Mark Ivanir, Bettina Kupfer, Anna
Mucha, Jonathan Sagalle, Andrzej Seweryn
type of work · Feature film
genre · Docudrama; epic film
language · English
time and place produced · Kraków, Poland, 1993
awards
· 1994 Academy Awards:
· Winner, Best Picture
· Winner, Best Director (Steven Spielberg)
· Winner, Best Cinematography (Janusz Kaminski)
· Winner, Best Film Editing (Michael Kahn)
· Winner, Best Music, Original Score (John Williams)
· Winner, Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or
Published (Steven Zaillian)
· Winner, Best Art Direction, Set Design (Allan Starski, Ewa Braun)
· 1994 Golden Globes:
· Winner, Best Motion Picture, Drama
· Winner, Best Director, Motion Picture (Steven Spielberg)
· Winner, Best Screenplay, Motion Picture (Steven Zaillian)
· Nominated, Best Original Score, Motion Picture (John Williams)
Schindler’s List
· Nominated, Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama (Liam
Neeson)
· Nominated, Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion
Picture (Ralph Fiennes)
date of release · 1993
producers · Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen, Branko Lustig
setting (time) · 1939–1945
setting (place) · Kraków, Poland
protagonist · Oskar Schindler
major conflict · Schindler struggles to save a group of Jews from death at the
hands of the Nazis.
rising action · Schindler, a Nazi war profiteer and womanizer, upon witnessing
increasing violence and killing of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland, undergoes a slow
transformation, becoming a compassionate man obsessed with saving the lives of
the Jewish workers in his factory.
climax · As Schindler witnesses the evacuation of the Kraków ghetto, he sees a
little girl in a red coat. The image and the violence he witnesses so move him that
his humanity is awakened, and he realizes he must do something to help.
falling action · After witnessing the evacuation of the Jewish ghetto, Schindler
realizes his factory is a haven for Jews and begins actively to give Stern expensive
goods to use as bribes to bring more Jews into his factory, where he can keep
them at least somewhat safe.
themes · The triumph of the human spirit; the difference one individual can make;
the dangerous ease of denial
motifs · Lists; trains; death
symbols · The girl in the red coat; the road paved with Jewish headstones; piles of
personal items
foreshadowing · Schindler has to rescue Stern from a train bound for a death
camp, foreshadowing his eventual rescue of all of his workers. The appearance of
tables for processing Jews foreshadows death. Schindler’s use of bribery early in
the film for his own gain foreshadows his use of bribery to purchase the Jews.
Schindler’s List