Schindler's List

On September 6, 1939, the Germans capture Cracow. In the wake of this capture, Oskar Schindler moves into the city—and remains there for the next five years. Before delving into Schindler’s life and exploits in Cracow, Keneally looks to Schindler’s childhood and adolescence for a fuller portrait and possible reasons that he took the radical actions he did. Schindler was born in 1908 in Zwittau, Moravia. His father ran a farm equipment and machine business. A neighbor of the family, Dr. Felix Kantor, was a progressive rabbi, though no documentation exists of any serious relationship between his family and the Schindlers. Schindler spent his childhood tinkering with automotives and racing motorbikes with local boys. After a short courting period of a few weeks, Schindler married Emilie Pelzi.

In the novel’s present, Schindler meets Eberhard Gebauer of the Abwehr, the Nazis’ spy program, in 1936 and becomes a spy for the Nazis. He joins the Nazi Party as an official member in the months after Germany annexes portions of Czechoslovakia in 1938 under the Munich Agreement. His position in the Abwehr keeps him employed when other employment falls through or employers like Moravian Electro-Technic go bankrupt. Keneally speculates that the violent annexation of Czechoslovakia helped disillusion Schindler later in life. After working as a German spy in Czechoslovakia for several years, Schindler is sent to the recently captured city of Cracow, Poland to use his skills in business to spy on industry and industry owners.

In October 1939, the Nazis are beginning their campaign of terror and genocide against Polish Jewish people. An incident in which German NCOs bully a Jewish clothmaker into giving them free cloth in exchange for bogus money puts the worker and the company in hot water. Such an investigation would lead to imprisonment and potential death of the Jewish worker. Sepp Aue, the German appointed to run the Jewish textile business by the Germans, sends for Itzhak Stern, the company’s original Jewish accountant. Aue wants Stern to see if he can clear the issue surrounding the defunct currency. Aue coincidentally has a scheduled meeting with Schindler in the middle of this fiasco.

Stern burns the defunct money and writes off the missing cloth as a “free sample” given to the NCOs for their status as Germans, thus saving the worker from an investigation. Aue introduces Stern to Schindler, who’s looking to acquire a business venture in Cracow. Schindler asks Stern about business prospects in Cracow. With Stern’s assistance, Schindler acquires the defunct Rekord factory to manufacture enamelware and mess kits. Stern realizes that Schindler, who talks frankly with him, doesn’t hate Jewish people like other German occupiers. Stern accidentally reveals that he doesn’t think Hitler will win the war. When Schindler doesn’t retaliate, Stern knows he’s safe to be around. Stern decides to convince Schindler to employ Jewish workers at his new factory. To persuade Schindler to help the Jewish people of Cracow, Stern cites a Talmudic verse “which said that he who saves the life of one man saves the entire world” (48).

Keneally introduces Leopold Pfefferberg, the man who later convinced him to write Schindler’s List. During the German occupation, Pfefferberg becomes a black-market trader and goods runner. Pfefferberg relies on his German-like appearance and on forged documents to move throughout Cracow. When Schindler visits Pfefferberg’s home in 1939 for the first time, Pfefferberg almost kills him. Schindler has acquired an apartment in Cracow and wants the interior decorated. He learns through Stern’s contacts that Pfefferberg’s mother is an excellent interior decorator and has come to hire her. At first, Pfefferberg believes that Schindler is a Gestapo (German secret police) agent and plans to shoot him. However, Pfefferberg quickly learns that Schindler can be trusted and begins doing black-market dealings on Schindler’s behalf for liquor, cigarettes, jewelry, and other items. Pfefferberg’s mother agrees to decorate Schindler’s apartment.

In December 1939, Stern and Schindler meet again to discuss Schindler’s application to buy the abandoned Rekord factory. Schindler asks Stern about the increasingly extreme treatment of Jewish people in Cracow and becomes disillusioned with the German regime. Schindler warns Stern that an Aktion is imminent and that the SS plans to ramp up attacks on Jewish neighborhoods. Schindler’s warning comes to pass when the SS pillages the Stara Boznica synagogue in the Kazimierz district.

Keneally puts the attack into perspective, referring to Nazi Germany’s initiatives outside Cracow. The attack on Stara Boznica is part of a larger wave to unleash paramilitary groups on Jewish neighborhoods and places of worship, in preparation for the coming ghettos and, later, their liquidation and the formation of concentration camps. When Schindler’s warning proves true, Stern is further convinced that he’s trustworthy despite his public allegiance to the Nazi party.

Schindler asks his secretary and lover, Victoria Klonowska, to help him find a bar that SS officials don’t frequent. She finds a small jazz cellar that the SS avoids. Schindler begins meeting co-conspirators frequently in this bar. They include men like Reeder, Steinhauser, Eberhard Gebauer, Martin Plathe, and Herman Toffel, who all are small-time officials for the SS, the Cracow police, or other affiliated groups. Schindler generously buys these men drinks regularly, and they discuss their feelings about the regime’s treatment of the Jewish people and other minorities that will eventually be sent to the concentration camps. The narrative implies that these men all become part of Schindler’s nebulous and vast network of contacts that later keep his factory safe.

At this point in the occupation, the German regime conscripts Jewish people into menial, hard-labor tasks. The Judenrat (“Jewish Council,” or representative groups for Jewish neighborhoods) readily gives lists of names to the SS for hard labor in hopes of sparing the Jewish neighborhoods from backlash. The Ostbahn (the German Railway in Poland) is steadily turning more of its resources toward transporting humans in cattle cars, a sign of the coming ghetto liquidations and camps.

Schindler begins making under-the-table deals with Jewish businessmen to fund his factory. At this point, Jewish businessmen aren’t allowed to do business or manage their own businesses; the German regime appoints Treuhänders (trustees) to handle those businesses in an effort to take away Jewish people’s access to capital. Schindler pays these Jewish businessmen back under the table. By midsummer of 1940, Schindler has about 250 employees, 150 of whom are Jewish. He renames the factory Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik (DEF), which the workers nickname Emalia. Emalia is near the factories of Julius Madritsch, another capitalist who uses his position to protect his Jewish workers. Schindler and Madritsch often work together to protect workers.

Emilie, Schindler’s wife, moves briefly to Cracow, where Pfefferberg meets her. Pfefferberg is ashamed of Schindler’s affairs and thus has difficulty speaking to Emilie. Meanwhile, Schindler becomes increasingly agitated with the SS as they continuously harass, detain, and harm his workers.

Keneally introduces the Rosner brothers, Jewish musicians who travel together from Warsaw. Their excellent performances keep them alive and earn them the favor of SS officers. Eventually, they end up in Płaszów and Schindler’s factory. By this time, Schindler has begun another love affair with a woman named Ingrid, a Treuhänder. All the women in Schindler’s life know of one another, though they don’t make an ordeal out of Schindler’s womanizing, according to Keneally.

The narrative relays the story of the one family who ever lodged complaints against Schindler. The Cs (whose real names are hidden by request) claimed that Schindler was a “thug” who beat up their son and extorted money from them. Stern doesn’t believe this story but nonetheless relays these complaints to Schindler. Meanwhile, the Judenrat begins saving money to bribe officials, and Hans Frank declares that he wants to rid Cracow of every last Jewish person.

On Christmas in 1940, Schindler uses his immense wealth from the factory to splurge on Christmas gifts for the women in his life. His factory begins pressing bullet shells alongside making enamelware and mess kits, making DEF essential to Germany’s war efforts. The Germans begin corralling the Jewish population into the Podgórze ghetto in early 1941. Many among the Jewish population believe that the ghetto is the ultimate goal of the Germans and that their situation can’t worsen beyond that. Some feel that the ghetto is a safer place than the outside, where the Germans routinely harassed and harmed them. A trolley line for non-Jewish Cracow citizens bisects the ghetto into two walled-off sections.

In March 1940, Jewish people no longer earn wages for their work and effectively become enslaved by the German regime. Factory owners must “rent” them from the German government. Stern begins pressing Schindler to hire more Jewish people so that they can be protected as skilled workers in an essential factory. Schindler begins to realize the gravity of the situation and acquiesces to Stern’s demands. He promises his workers that they’ll make it through the war.

In the spring of 1941, Schindler goes home to see his family in Zwittau. His father has left his mother, who died shortly after the divorce because of preexisting health conditions. Schindler heavily resents his father but is oblivious to how he mimics his father’s behavior. Both Schindler men have alcoholism, treat their wives poorly, and pursue wealth through owning capital and a workforce.

While in Zwittau, Schindler avoids his father. One day, while eating in a café, his old motorcycle-racing friends drag him into a meeting with his father, who happens to be eating there too. Schindler’s father is a shadow of his former self: His drinking habits and the divorce have taken a toll on him. Schindler reconciles with his father, and the two men have lunch before Schindler leaves Zwittau.