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Chapter 8
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 spring, Schindler leaves his Cracow factory and goes back to Zwittau to visit Emilie and the rest of his family. They go to dinner, and the whole time they avoid the question of whether Emilie should come to Cracow. Schindler excuses himself and goes off drinking with some of his old friends from his biker days.
Schindler’s relationship with his wife remains precarious, although she is seemingly too devoted of a Catholic to bring up a subject like divorce. In this way, her religious duty as a wife keeps her loyal to Schindler, for better or worse.
Themes
One of Schindler’s friends tells him that Schindler’s father is having dinner alone, and that he’s been reduced to a shadow of his former self. Moreover, he knows Schindler is in town. Reluctantly, Schindler and his father meet up. Schindler is moved by his father’s poor health and realizes that he is human too. He hugs his father, and the old motorcyclists around them all applaud.
Schindler’s reunion with his father is one of the earliest examples of how Schindler can change for the better, putting aside his own pride in order to sympathize with his father and forgive him in spite of his flaws.
Themes
