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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
In fact, Brinnlitz produces nothing, not even a single shell. Schindler uses the excuse of “start-up difficulties” to explain the shortfalls. At one point, he has to ship a truckful of munitions parts (which had arrived at Brinnlitz half-completed) in order to avoid raising suspicion, but that’s the extent of it.
Schindler’s lack of productivity earns him a bad reputation with the Armaments Ministry. Because of the fragmented nature of manufacturing there, his nonproductivity causes problems for other factories too. Schindler simply laughs the complaint letters away.
Schindler’s sabotage ends up playing a big role because of how the wartime industries in Germany were connected. This is yet another example of the Nazis’ paradoxical treatment of Jewish people: their entire regime is based on anti-Semitism, yet the German war effort depends on Jewish prisoners’ labor.
Themes
One such complaint letter arrives on April 28, 1945, Schindler’s 37th birthday. He is overjoyed to find that his antitank shells fail all quality-control tests (because that means they can’t actually kill anyone). Still, it is a dangerous time for the prisoners whom Hassebroeck has condemned to death.
Schindler once more gets important news on his birthday. Excitement is high because of the seeming success at Brinnlitz so far, but the risks are far from over.
Themes
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The birthday telegram raises the question of how Schindler’s Brinnlitz factory managed to survive the seven months before his birthday. Schindler deals with inspectors by offering them big, boozy lunches and dinners. Legend has it that one resistant inspector boasted that he wouldn’t let Schindler charm him, so Schindler tripped him down a flight of stairs, splitting his head and breaking his leg. (Schindler himself never told this story.)
Charming minor officials remains a key part of Schindler’s strategy. The book recounts possibly untrue stories about Schindler pushing a man down a flight of stairs because whether or not the stories are true, their very existence confirms that Schindler was elevated to the status of a legend or a hero after World War II ended.
Themes
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Schindler also uses tricks, like a gauge on furnaces that shows the right temperature even when it’s hundreds of degrees too cool. Schindler reacts with indignation, and some inspectors even feel sympathy toward him. Stern and Pfefferberg claim Schindler sometimes bought shells from other manufacturers to present as his own at inspections. Schindler also holds tours and grand dinners to impress skeptical local officials.
Schindler’s deception is not only personal—his team of prisoners also find technological ways to deceive inspectors. Still, Schindler’s personality remains a major part of his success, as he is adept at drawing sympathy from those around him.
Themes
In winter, Schindler begins stockpiling weapons, pretending that he’s using them to protect his factory. To get them, he bribes the wife of the police chief of Moravia, Rasch, with a diamond ring. Uri Bejski is put in charge of watching the weapons. Bejski begins taking a small group of prisoners out to train, some of whom are “Budzyn people” (who survived the liquidation of the Budzyn labor camp, which had been under Liepold). The Budzyn people are highly political, with many of them being Marxists.
The stockpiling of weapons suggests that Schindler and his prisoners are preparing for the worst—perhaps for the possibility that the Nazis will want to go out with a bang rather than quietly surrendering.
Themes
