Schindler's List Plot Summary The German Army Invades Poland

The Polish Army having been defeated by the German Army in the initiating event of World War II in Europe, Jews living in occupied Poland are ordered to relocate to population centers. The film's action starts with crowds of Jews from all over the country, hasidic, assimilated, rich, and poor, detraining in Krakow, and submitting their names to German officials waiting at the platforms with typewriters and lists.

As this is happening, a newcomer has arrived in Krakow; his name is Oskar Schindler. Schindler, a heretofore unsuccessful businessman from Germany, has come to Poland with the hope of using the now abundant slave labor force of Jews and Poles to manufacture goods for the German Army. Schindler makes a very good impression with the occupation authorities early on, being a member of the Nazi Party and lavishing gifts and bribes upon the army and SS officials now running southern Poland.

1.2 Schindler's Factory

With his military sponsors in his back pocket, he sets out to acquire a factory for the production of enamelwareIn a discussion of art or technology, enamel (or vitreous enamel or porcelain enamel in American English) is the colorful result of fusion of powdered glass to a substrate through the process of firing, usually between 750 and 850 degrees Celsius. The pow, mainly cookery. He hasn't the money to buy it, and his administrative skills are dubious at best, but he finds through his contacts Itzhak Stern , a functionary in the local judenratJudenrat German for "Jewish council", were administrative bodies the Germans required Jews to form in each ghetto in General Government (Nazi-occupied colony in the central part of Poland). These bodies where responsible for local government in the ghetto (Jewish Council) who in turn has contacts with the now underground Jewish business community. Schindler makes the Jewish businessmen a deal they cannot refuse: they will loan him the money for the factory, and he will give them a small share of the pots and pans produced. He takes particular pleasure in telling them that they must take him at his word, and that no court would ever uphold a contract between a German and a Jew.

Schindler gets his money and starts the factory; he keeps the Nazis happy and enjoys his new-found wealth, while Stern actually operates the factory and uses his position to help his fellow Jews, who have now been confined to a ghettoThe name ghetto refers to an area where people from a given ethnic background or united in a given culture or religion live as a group, voluntarily or involuntarily, in milder or stricter seclusion. The word historically referred to restricted housing zon within Krakow. Workers in Schindler's factory are allowed access outside the ghetto, and are certified as "essential workers," guaranteeing that they will not be rounded up at night by the GestapoGestapo is a portmanteau contraction of the name of the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, Geheime Staatspolizei ( German for "secret state police"). History The Gestapo was established on April 26, 1933 in Prussia. With members recruited from. This last point is key, and Stern uses his considerable skills to make sure as many people as possible are deemed "essential" by the Nazi bureacracy, even children, the elderly, and the infirm - people who would otherwise be rounded up and sent away. Schindler becomes aware of what is going on, and seems embarrassed by the whole arrangement, but takes no action to stop it.

Where exactly the "unessential" people are sent is a matter of rumor among the Jews; a few suggest that they are taken off to concentration campA concentration camp is a large detention centre created for political opponents, aliens, specific ethnic or religious groups, civilians of a critical war-zone, or other groups of people, often during a war. The term refers to situations where the internes, but people hearing this reject the idea as ridiculous. One old woman exclaims, "We are their work force! Why would they want to kill their own work force?"

1.3 The Razing of the Ghetto

At this point, an SS officer named Amon Goeth arrives in Krakow to initiate construction of a labor camp, Plaszow, and to take over control of the Ghetto. In one of the most sickening scenes in the film, a Jewish engineer explains that a foundation has been improperly laid, and for this he has her shot in the head. He then, in the next breath, orders that everything she requested be done. Goeth is the focus of the film's depiction of Nazi sadism and inhumanity, not only taking pleasure in murder and torture, but considering it an integral part of his job, a matter of duty. In one scene, he decides not to shoot a young boy for not properly cleaning his bathtub, but then, after reflecting, decides that he must be firm, and shoots him in the back as he walks away.

In due course, Goeth razes the Krakow ghetto, sending in hundreds of troops to clear the cramped rooms and shooting anyone who refuses or cannot leave. Schindler watches the massacre from the hills overlooking the ghetto, and is profoundly affected. But, he now faces the more immediate problem of how to run his factory without his workers. He meets with Goeth, befriends him, and convinces him to let him keep his workers for considerable bribes and payoffs. Schindler is now, though reluctantly, sheltering people who have very few skills in his factory.

It is during the clearing out of the ghetto that Spielberg introduces a character known as "the girl in red:" a young girl wearing a red coat. The color of the coat stands out, because it is the only object that appears in color throughout the entire film (except for two instances of a candle flame); the rest of the movie is filmed in black-and-white, except for the final present-day coda. Film critics and scholars have suggested the appearance of the girl in the red coat is a "marker" used by Spielberg to denote the transformation of Schindler's personality: the first time she appears, Schindler changes from a cold-hearted businessman interested only in profit into a person struggling to do the right thing; he makes his first attempts to covertly assist his workers and save them from persecution and death afterwards. With the second appearance of the girl in red, Schindler makes a further transformation into an altruistic angel whose primary motive is not profit, but rather to save the lives of his workers.

1.4 The List

To Amon Goeth's considerable consternation, and to Schindler's horror, an order arrives from Berlin commanding Goeth to exhume and destroy all of bodies of those killed in the ghetto razing, to dismantle the Plaszow, and to ship the whole population to Auschwitz. Goeth remarks sarcastically, "It will take about four weeks for me to do the paperwork -- that ought to be fun." Schindler prevails upon Goeth to let him keep his workers, so that he can move them to a factory in his old home of Zwittau-Brunnlitz, Czechoslovakia, away from the Holocaust now fully underway in Poland. Goeth acquiesces, for a payoff on the order of millions of Reichsmarks. So that his workers can be kept off the trains to the killing centers, Schindler, with Stern, assembles a list of his workers.

This list of "skilled" inmates was Schindler's List, and for many of the inmates of Plaszow camp, being on the list meant the difference between life and death. Except for a railway mishap, in which one of the trains carrying women was accidentally redirected to Auschwitz, all the people on Schindler's list arrive safely at the new site. Once the workers arrive in Czechoslovakia, Schindler institutes firm controls on the Nazi guards assigned to the factory, permits the Jews to observe the sabbath, and spends the rest of his fortune bribing Nazi officials. He runs out of money just in time for the war in Europe to end.

As a German, a Nazi, and a "profiteer of slave labor" (his words), Schindler must flee the oncoming Soviet Army. He packs a car in the night, and bids farewell to his workers. They give him a letter, explaining to others that he is not a criminal, and they also give him a ring, engraved with the Talmudic quotation, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire." Schindler is racked with guilt, seeing his car, and realizing he could have bribed two more people from Goeth for it. He pulls the Nazi Party pin from his lapel, and cries, "This is gold. I could have gotten one more person for this. He would have given me one... One more person." He leaves. The next morning, a Russian dragoon arrives, and announces to the Jews, "You have been liberated by the Soviet Army!"

1.5 The Coda

The film ends in Israel, at the grave of Oskar Schindler, in the present day. The actors portraying the major characters in the film process by the grave, and place stones on it, while the actual persons they portrayed walk beside them doing the same. The camera pans, revealing a long line of people.

In a final shot, a man places a flower on the grave, and stands contemplatively over it. The man cannot be recognized, due to the distance of the camera, but it can be interpreted as being either Liam Neeson or the director Steven Spielberg.

Tagline: Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.

2 The Movie

The movie was directed by famed director Steven Spielberg, who later spoke of the making of the movie as affecting him deeply. It was produced almost entirely in black and white (with a color prologue and epilogue, a red coat in two scenes, and colour candle flames in another). It starred Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler, Ben Kingsley as Itzhak Stern, and Ralph Fiennes as Amon Goeth. Its tagline was simply, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire," a quote from the Talmud. Critically acclaimed, the film won praise for depicting—often in exceptional, graphic detail—the horrible brutality of the Holocaust.

Nominated for twelve Academy Awards, this movie won seven, including the coveted Best Picture and Best Director awards for Spielberg, which many of his supporters felt he had been unfairly denied for prior productions, although he had previously received the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.

Following the critical and box office success of Schindler's List, Spielberg founded and continues to finance the Shoah Project, a non-profit organization with the goal of providing an archive for the filmed testimony of as many survivors of the Holocaust as possible, so that their stories will not be lost in the future.

3 Credits

Direction: Steven Spielberg
Cast: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall
Writing credits: Thomas Keneally (novel), Steven Zaillian (screenplay)
Composer: John Williams
Editor: Michael Kahn
Producer: Branko Lustig, Gerald R. Molen, Steven Spielberg for ??.

4 See also

La vita e' bella, a comedy film about concentration camps.
The Pianist

5 External links

1982 books 1993 films AFI 100 Movies Spielberg films Holocaust Polish history World War II films

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1 Plot Summary

1.1 The German Army Invades Poland