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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 heads back to Cracow by freight train, already anticipating what will happen the ghetto will soon be closed. An SS Untersturmführer named Amon Goeth is going to bring about the closure and take command of a Forced Labor Camp at Płaszów.
The SS had an elaborate system of rankings, which is one example of how enormous and complex the Nazi bureaucracy was. An Untersturmführer was relatively high but still reported to some superior ranks.
Themes
Goeth is a Viennese man who joined the National Socialist Party near its beginning. He is the same age as Schindler and also shares the same religion, the same large physique, and the same penchant for alcohol. He is also sexually insatiable and frequently abusive after the initial honeymoon period fades, and one rumor has it that he sometimes sexually abuses inferiors in the SS.
Goeth actually resembles Schindler in many ways. He is perhaps meant to appear as a foil to Schindler: he became ideologically committed to the Nazi Party early on in the war, whereas Schindler only joined the Nazis for business interests and quickly came to resent the Party.
Themes
The 10,000 Jews still in the ghetto will become the labor force for the factories at the new Płaszów camp that Goeth is overseeing. The expectation is that German industrialists like Bosch, Madritsch, and Schindler will want to move their factories into the camp. The camp is still in the construction process and looks unfinished to Goeth, but a low-ranking SS officer named Horst Pilarzik (who has a reputation for clearing 7,000 people out of the ghetto) assures him that the camp is closer to completion than it looks. Pilarzik is afraid Goeth is demoralized by the camp-in-progress, but in fact, Goeth is exhilarated by the possibilities.
Goeth’s excitement about the half-finished camp is an early example of his megalomania. At this point in the war, the suffering of Jewish people was often directly related to German industry and the war effort. Though many Jewish people died in concentration camps, they were also essential to the Germans because of how their labor contributed to producing munitions and other essential items.
Themes
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All the local factory owners are called to a meeting in Julian Scherner’s office, where Goeth is present. Goeth hopes to charm Bosch, Madritsch and Schindler into moving their operations into his new camp. Scherner opens the meeting by going over the benefits of such a move to the industrialists. He then formally introduces Goeth as the new camp commandant.
Goeth’s attempt to charm his potential adversaries is another way in which he resembles Schindler, though (unbeknownst to Goeth) the two men have opposite ideologies.
Themes
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Goeth points on a map to the spaces in the camp set aside for factories. He seems particularly interested in winning over Madritsch and Schindler, who are both skeptical. Though Schindler is able to hide his disagreement better with a smile, ultimately, he is the one who refuses while Madritsch grudgingly agrees. Though the builders of the camp went to great lengths to make it appear as if labor is its real goal, Schindler is well aware of the more brutal true purposes.
Though Schindler and Madritsch have similar goals, they also have very different methods. Schindler is bolder—arguably sometimes to the point of recklessness—but it’s an effective strategy to get what he wants. Madritsch, by contrast, is more cautious.
Themes
In fact, Goeth had ordered an execution in front of his men that very morning. The lower-ranking SS officer Hujar had been in a disagreement with a Jewish woman about a flaw in the camp construction that she noticed. Goeth accused the Jewish woman of being a liar and ordered Hujar to execute her. Hujar was reluctant, but he did it. This incident taught Hujar and the others that these sorts of executions were permitted and perhaps even expected when working under Goeth.
Goeth establishes early on that his style of ruling will be arbitrary and brutal, and that his inferiors have no choice but to follow his orders. The seeming randomness of this execution is meant to instill fear in all of Goeth’s prisoners that they, too, could be killed at any moment.
Themes
