Schindler's List

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1982

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Chapter 9

Chapters 10-19

Chapters 20-29

Chapter 30-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Index of Terms

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Background

Historical Context: Schindler’s Political Life

Oskar Schindler lived from 1908 to 1974. He was a Sudetendeutsche, meaning southern-land German. The Sudetendeutsche were ethnic Germans that lived in Czechoslovakia in scattered pockets and made up a significant minority of the population. Schindler joined the Sudeten German Party (SGP) of Czechoslovakia in 1935 at the age of 27. (For more on the Sudetendeutsche and the Sudeten German Party, see Index of Terms.) The SGP pushed for the annexation of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany under the Munich agreement and thus was partly responsible for the Nazis’ crimes in the region. Schindler, like many Sudetendeutsches, joined the party on a wave of ultra-nationalist fervor for a united “homeland” for all German peoples. The SGP and the resulting Munich Agreement were responsible for the validation of the Nazi Lebensraum ideology. Nazi Germany’s ability to implement Lebensraum in the Sudetenland galvanized it to annex more territory for German colonialism.

Thomas Keneally doesn’t explore Schindler’s time in the SGP, yet Schindler’s membership in the party is the sole reason for his stint as an Abwehr spy and his membership in the Nazi party as a respected official. Without joining the SGP, Schindler would likely not have made his way to Cracow, Poland. Schindler’s relatively early membership in the SGP suggests that he believed in the Nazi vision of the future to some degree, as does his spying on the Czechoslovakian government for the Nazis in advance of their invasion. Although Keneally presents Schindler as apolitical, his pre-Cracow life presents a figure that aligned morally with the Nazi vision of the future. Schindler’s beliefs and behavior were unexceptional for the Sudetendeutsche: The vast majority of Sudetendeutsches voted for and backed the SGP before the party was absorbed into the Nazi party post-annex. Schindler’s experiences of Nazi policy in action likely radicalized him against the party and belief system he’d once accepted readily before the German invasion of Czechoslovakia.

Cultural Context: Spielberg’s Film

Director Steven Spielberg turned Schindler’s Ark into his 1993 film Schindler’s List. Because of the film’s wide success, the novel was renamed to better tie the two together. The film was shot in black and white in Kraków, Poland. Widely considered one of the best films ever made, Schindler’s List won 12 Academy Awards, seven BAFTAs, and three Golden Globe Awards. The film is preserved in the National Film Registry of the US Library of Congress.

The film came about because shortly after the novel’s release, Spielberg met with Poldek Pfefferberg, one of the people whom Schindler saved, and agreed to turn the novel into a film in 10 years’ time. Pfefferberg had been attempting to get a biopic documentary about Schindler’s life made in Hollywood since the early 1960s. Spielberg put the film on hold for so long because he was hesitant to tackle such dark subject matter. The end of the film features a procession of actors and the actual Schindlerjuden survivors they portray visiting Schindler’s grave in Jerusalem.

The film’s impact and the praise of critics dramatically reshaped popular conversations around the horrors of the Holocaust. Its release in Germany sparked conversation and debates that broke the “big silence” surrounding the Holocaust in postwar Germany (Miller, Marjorie. “Breaking the ‘Big Silence’: ‘Schindler’s List’ Forces Germans to Look at Their History.” Los Angeles Times, 7 March 1994). Many German families—particularly those that had benefited from the Nazi regime—had informally decided to never speak about the war after it ended, considering it too painful and awkward to acknowledge the atrocities of Nazi Germany. The film’s release in Germany forced many German families to confront their past, prompting younger generations to ask older generations of their families about the war. Likewise, most citizens of Kraków in the 1990s were unaware of the Jewish ghetto of Podgórze (“How Spielberg’s ‘Schindler’s List’ changed Krakow.” Pavo Travel, December 5, 2014.). The film introduced Kraków citizens to examine their recent past and prompted citizens to visit the sites of the old ghetto that Spielberg used in the film. The film opened avenues of communication about the Holocaust’s atrocities and bridged the gap between past and present throughout the world.