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Chapter 17
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Schindler’s List, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Virtue and Selflessness
Anti-Semitism and Dehumanization
Power
Duty
Bureaucracy
Summary
Analysis
Schindler makes the uncomfortable journey to Hungary in a freight train. Even though he has proper travel documents if needed, he doesn’t want people to know that he’s been to Hungary. He stays near the university, and two men from Sedlacek’s organization—Springmann and Kastner—come to meet Schindler in his room. They hope Schindler will know more than the Jewish refugees they’ve met, who often don’t have the full picture of what’s going on.
Schindler’s secret voyage is a risk to himself and his factory, but he knows that Sedlacek’s organization can help him with his ultimate goal of helping Jewish people survive the war.
Themes
Schindler spares no details about the horrors he’s seen in Cracow, noting that the population the ghetto has been reduced by four-fifths and in the whole city by half. Some of these missing people are in work camps, but a large proportion of them were sent to Vernichtungslagers, or extermination camps. Springmann and Kastner asks if the SS men are as corruptible as other police forces, and Schindler replies that in his experience, every single one of them is.
Schindler’s observation that SS men are as corruptible as other police forces will be proven true time and again in his life. Arguably, some of Schindler’s greatest abilities are charming other people, figuring out how to corrupt useful authority figures, and manipulating the Nazi bureaucracy to his advantage.
Themes
When Schindler finishes his account, even Springmann and Kastner, who are familiar with past atrocities, are shocked by what they’ve heard. They make plans for Schindler to continue seeing Dr. Sedlacek in Cracow on a regular basis.
Once again, the magnitude of the Nazis’ atrocities is emphasized. The news of people being sent to concentration camps and extermination camps en masse is shocking even to people who have witnessed things like Aktions.
Themes
