Schindler's List

In the fall of 1944, Schindler carries out his plan to open a camp in Moravia. He tries to persuade Madritsch to join him, but Madritsch has doubts about the venture and refuses, believing that his resources are better spent on reducing harm in Płaszów proper. Moravia’s governor refuses to allow labor camps: He doesn’t want Jewish people within the territory the SS has given him to rule over. While Schindler tries to get a foothold in Moravia, Goeth is arrested by the SS and investigated by Bureau V. He’s charged with stealing Jewish possessions—possessions of the State: The SS believes that he has been stealing from Germany by stealing from prisoners instead of turning their valuables over to Germany. The SS detains and interrogates various prisoners, including Helen Hirsch, about Goeth’s behavior—not his sadism or extrajudicial executions but his theft of prisoners’ wealth. After Goeth’s arrest, SS Commandant Buscher is put in charge of Płaszów. Goeth erroneously believes that Helen Hirsch and Schindler will vouch for him and free him from imprisonment.

Schindler’s bribes allow him to open a factory near his hometown of Zwittau in a town named Brinnlitz. He convinces the Armament Board to strong-arm the governor of Moravia after an Allied bomber crashes into his factory and kills two workers. The people of Brinnlitz paper the city with antisemitic propaganda in advance of the factory’s opening. The first draft of Schindler’s list is delivered to Płaszów. Titsch tries to get as many people from the Madritsch factory onto the list as he can. The list’s final version is controlled by a Płaszów clerk named Goldberg, who accepts bribes to put people on the list and cross others off.

Schindler spends most of his time, energy, and resources bribing people for the Brinnlitz move: He must move all his factory equipment and appease SS officials. Goeth, in prison, says that his illegal cache of money came solely from Schindler bribing him. Schindler’s implication in the investigation takes much of his attention: He can’t save the prisoners if Bureau V arrests him too.

On October 15, 1944, the DEF men leave Płaszów for Brinnlitz. The Brinnlitz camp, officially a subcamp of Gross-Rosen, is overseen by SS Commandant Hassebroek, like Goeth oversaw the DEF camp in Cracow. The men travel through brutal winter conditions and briefly stay in Gross-Rosen, where they’re forced to stand naked in the winter weather for hours at a time. After a few days of torture, they’re freed and this time are sent to the correct camp in Brinnlitz.

The Soviets have crushed the German western front, forcing the Germans to leave behind evidence of their crimes. The Soviets find the remains of the Lublin concentration camp and share this news with the world.

Schindler foots the entire bill for the Brinnlitz camp, which bankrupts him. Emilie, Schindler’s distant wife, comes to live with him at the Brinnlitz camp. Schindler continues to have affairs even while his wife is living with him, but Emilie doesn’t seem to care about his affairs. The DEF women and children, who were supposed to be sent out shortly after the men, have ended up in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The Schindler women in Auschwitz are terrorized by the SS guards, who know they’re from Brinnlitz. Mengele, the infamous “Angel of Death” SS doctor, personally torments the Schindler women. They have no protection from the elements and, in the extreme cold, experience malnutrition and contract typhus, dysentery, and lice while holding onto hope that they’ll be saved despite their circumstances.

Schindler begins to actively sabotage the German war effort. The Brinnlitz camp exclusively manufactures shell casings for tank and mortar shots. Schindler ensures that all of his machines are improperly calibrated so that nothing they make passes inspection or is usable. Schindler lets his workers focus on personal projects for much of the day, while he spends his time securing them weapons and goods to protect themselves and barter with after the war. Schindler butts heads with the assigned SS commandant of the subcamp, Liepold, a hardline party man who believes in the Nazi vision of the future. Schindler must frequently misdirect Liepold in order to cover his own operations at Brinnlitz.

Schindler is arrested a third and final time. Twelve SS investigators and a Bureau V judge interrogate him for hours about his connections to Goeth and his illegal funds. The investigators abuse Schindler while holding him prisoner; one spits on him for his sympathy to his workers. While Schindler is gone, Emilie takes over the factory: She’s just as committed to saving the prisoners as Schindler is.

Schindler is released from prison, yet the Schindler women are still trapped in Auschwitz-Birkenau. At Stern’s behest, Schindler sends a young secretary to negotiate for the women’s release. No one knows who this woman is or any details about her: Keneally thinks it unlikely that Schindler asked the mystery secretary to sleep with Hassebroek to gain freedom for the women, yet many believe this version. Schindler then personally visits Auschwitz, where they offer him 300 other women in lieu of the 300 Schindler women. Schindler tells bombastic lies about the skilled work that only children can do in a munitions factory when questioned about the children on his supposedly “skilled-workers” list. At the same time, the factory in Brinnlitz is raided, and the children who aren’t hidden are taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where they reunite with their mothers.

Auschwitz begins to break the Schindler women. Clara Sternberg attempts death by suicide on the camp’s electric fence before she’s persuaded not to do so. The few children taken from Brinnlitz, along with their fathers, travel to Auschwitz, including Henry and Olek Rosner. As the men arrive, the women are escorted out of Auschwitz and sent to Brinnlitz. The men, women, and children have a brief reunion separated by a barbed-wire fence. Once the women reach Brinnlitz, Emilie nurses them all back to health. Many are on the brink of death and would have died had they spent another day in Auschwitz. Some need months of convalescence, yet Emilie doesn’t give up on them. Keneally speculates on how many of Emilie’s courageous actions the mythos of Oskar Schindler subsumed.

In the last days of 1944 and early days of 1945, Schindler is often absent from Brinnlitz. He travels using forged documents to smuggle food and other goods back to Brinnlitz. In Schindler’s absence, Liepold terrorizes the factory workers. Janek Dresner, a teenager, accidentally breaks a machine, and Liepold uses it as an excuse to hang him. Schindler arrives just before the hanging; he insists that they have a trial on the floor and that he be allowed to act as judge, since the boy broke his machinery. Liepold begrudgingly agrees, and Schindler puts on a theatrical show in which he slaps Dresner in mock-rage. This physical violence placates Liepold, and Dresner avoids execution; Schindler secretly winks at Dresner when Liepold can’t see him. Keneally believes that the Brinnlitz factory existed solely through confidence and the audacity of openly defying the SS party.

In April 1945, Schindler turns 37. Hassebroek officially closes the Gross-Rosen camp, condemning the Brinnlitz camp to liquidation. Schindler begins acting recklessly to ensure his camp’s survival until the last days. Schindler knows from insider information that the war will likely be over soon, so he hopes to hold out until it ends and his prisoners can walk free. Stories abound: Schindler trips SS inspectors down flights of stairs, liquors them up when they come to inspect, and buys black-market tank shells to pass off as his own during inspection. During one inspection, Schindler leads SS men into the boiler room, where Lusia—one of the most severely ill women from Auschwitz-Birkenau, who wouldn’t leave her sickbed until the war ended—is convalescing. She believes that she may be a sacrificial lamb to appease the SS and thus keep the rest of the workers safe. Schindler excuses her presence to the SS men as if a sick Jewish woman in the boiler room was the most natural phenomenon in the world. The SS inspectors have no choice but to accept this and continue with the investigation.

Schindler spends his last days at the Brinnlitz camp fighting legal accusations by both locals and the SS. Meanwhile, he arms his workers in secret so that they can protect themselves after the war. A detachment of the SS barracks stationed at Brinnlitz are Ukrainian communists, conscripted by the SS upon their defeat. These “Budzyn People” sympathize heavily with the prisoners, training them in the use of firearms and, eventually, staying with them after the war ends.

Many SS officers believe that Schindler is “contaminated” by the “Jewish virus” (349) first mentioned in Chapter 22. Schindler conspires with an SS engineer named Sussmuth, who helped him acquire the Brinnlitz factory, to save even more people from Auschwitz. Schindler requests 30 metalworkers, whom he uses to train his other workers to make the ruse of skilled craftspeople working on secret weapons more believable. This ruse allows the factory to stay open a little longer. Many of the new metalworkers are astounded by the conditions at the factory and treat Schindler like a mythical, terrifying figure.

In January 1945, Auschwitz is disbanded and its prisoners either executed or dispersed elsewhere. Schindler stretches his resources to purchase runaways and cattle cars full of prisoners. Pfefferberg recounts rescuing a cattle car full of people from the Goleszow camp in the Zwittau railyard. He cuts open the frozen-shut door of the train car, only to find piles of bodies among the frozen, starving survivors. Schindler purchases land from a local cemetery to create a Jewish cemetery so that Goleszow’s deceased can have traditional Jewish burials.

Goeth is released from prison and visits Brinnlitz. No one knows what he wanted from Schindler or what passed between them. The prisoners openly mock Goeth, who’s now powerless to retaliate against them. Despite this, many prisoners still openly fear him and experience traumatic flashbacks when they see him.

Schindler turns 37 shortly before the war ends on May 8, 1945. Pemper intercepts a letter from Hassebroek addressed to Liepold. The letter informs Liepold to execute the prisoners of the camp if the Soviets come too close. Because of Liepold’s beliefs in the Nazi party, Schindler uses his birthday celebrations to arrange for Liepold to be sent to the war front. An officer named Motzek is promoted to Liepold’s position. Motzek is much more lukewarm about the Nazi party than Liepold was and thus won’t execute the prisoners.

As the Soviets approach, Schindler fears that they’ll execute him as a German war profiteer who capitalized on the mass suffering the Germans caused. The prisoners conspire to get Schindler to safety; many sign a letter attesting to the deeds Schindler accomplished in defiance of the Nazi party. The day after the end of the war is announced, a prisoner named Licht makes Schindler a ring as a memento from the gold teeth prisoners volunteered for the occasion. The ring is inscribed with the Talmudic verse that reads, “He who saves a single life saves the world entire” (368). Schindler gives a speech to both the guards and the prisoners. He begs the guards to let the prisoners go, while he asks the prisoners to not stoop to the violence of their oppressors. Schindler, along with this wife and a few select prisoners, then flee the Soviet advance. Schindler’s speech disarms the SS, all of whom flee and leave the prisoners with the Budzyn People.

Schindler’s last gift is a key to a storage facility stacked high with bolts of cloth that the prisoners are entitled to. Many make clothing for themselves, while others save their cloth to barter with now that the war is over. Schindler, meanwhile, is disguised in a prisoner’s outfit as he flees the Soviets. The only death in Brinnlitz is the German Kapo, or overseer, whom some of the prisoners hang.

Schindler and company flee toward the Americans. They stay temporarily in a Czech partisan camp, where Schindler’s car is stripped of all of its stashed valuables overnight, leaving him with nothing to his name but the letter and ring. The group eventually finds Americans and explains their story. The Americans, who have a field rabbi with them, take Schindler and his company to safety.

The Brinnlitz survivors don’t exit the factory until the Soviets arrive. The Soviet officer who personally visits the prison is himself Jewish. Many ex-prisoners have difficulty reintegrating into the flow of life in Brinnlitz, while other prisoners waste no time leaving for home. The Rosner family eventually reunites, and Henry’s violin, which kept him alive in Płaszów, has survived the war thanks to Schindler.

Schindler and company travel to the Swiss border in case violence against former Nazi party members suddenly erupts on the American base. However, the party is arrested at the Swiss border by French soldiers. They all keep an alibi of being escaped prisoners through interrogation. The French interrogators eventually crack their story. When the group tells the truth, the interrogators weep and move the Schindler party to a lakeside hotel where they’ll be safe.

After the war, Schindler is penniless and bereft. He never received compensation for his factories or any recompense for the funds spent to rescue people from the genocidal Nazi war machine. Goeth is tried at the Nuremberg Trials and hanged. He believed to the end that Schindler was his friend and would vouch for him. Pemper, who survived the war, uses his perfect recall to incriminate Goeth. Goeth shows no remorse for his actions as he walks to the hangman’s noose.

Schindler collaborates with Allied forces to identify and capture many SS officers who tried to escape justice through underground escape routes. Schindler’s identification of Liepold leads to his capture and execution. Without any payback from the Allies or Germany, Schindler and Emilie move to Argentina (a common place for German immigrants in the Americas) to start an animal farm. After a decade, the farm goes bankrupt, and Schindler moves back to Germany, leaving Emilie behind. He tries to start a cement business, which goes bankrupt in 1961.

News about Schindler’s exploits spreads from the Schindlerjuden, or Jewish people rescued by Schindler. On his 53rd birthday, Schindler is honored as Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli government, an honor given to people who helped Jewish people during the Holocaust. Germany awards him the Cross of Merit in 1966; he receives a Papal Knighthood honorific and a small pension from the German government. Schindler spends part of his years in Tel Aviv, where he’s honored and lives well. When not in Tel Aviv, he lives in a small apartment in Frankfurt, facing poverty, loneliness, and harassment from fellow Germans for being a “race traitor.” Schindlerjuden begin sending him money to help him live. Schindler comes to rely on the pension from the Schindlerjuden entirely.

Schindler works briefly for the German Friends of Hebrew University, raising funds for the university and for other Jewish initiatives. He dies alone in his Frankfurt apartment in 1974. Alcoholism catches up with him, and his liver fails. When Keneally penned the novel, Emilie still lived in Buenos Aires. Schindler is buried in Jerusalem, the only member of the Nazi party buried with the other Righteous.