Schindler’s List

After Schindler’s speech, the SS garrison begins to desert. The Budzyn people and other prisoners have already been issued weapons, but this is intended more to discourage the SS than to actually start a battle. By midnight after the speech, there are no visible SS in the camp.

Schindler hands over to Bankier the key to a storeroom full of materials that he got in a contract with the intention of using the materials to provide a starting stake for the Brinnlitz Jews. As Schindler passes over the valuable key to the room, he and Emilie are wearing prisoner’s stripes. With the help of eight prisoners, the Schindlers are driven off in their prisoner’s clothes to a place in Europe that will be safer for them.

After the SS leave, all that remains in Brinnlitz is a German Kapo with a deadly reputation. Some male prisoners hang him from a beam in the factory, though others try to prevent the killing, and his death brings mixed feelings to the camp. The next day, the goods from Schindler’s massive storeroom are distributed. At one point, a Panzer unit comes by and fires two shells into the camp. Fortunately, no one is seriously injured, and none of the prisoners make the mistake of responding to the tanks.

Czech partisans stop Schindler and his party at one point, and Schindler still pretends to be a prisoner. The Czechs let them go but take their weapons. They spend the night in an abandoned jail and find the next morning that their vehicles have been stripped down and can’t be used anymore. They take a train, then walk, encountering some American soldiers who let them pass. Finally, they find the full American infantry company and tell them the whole truth about Schindler’s identity.

The commander of the company leaves. Half an hour later, some Jewish American soldiers, including a field rabbi, arrive. They’re amazed: Schindler’s group is the first group of concentration camp survivors that they’ve met. Schindler and his party are treated as welcome guests for two days before being given a captured ambulance to leave.

Those remaining in Brinnlitz hang false signs about a typhus breakout to hopefully keep any lingering SS out. Some Czech partisans show up at the gate and say the prisoners are free to go, but the prisoners remain suspicious and say they’ll wait for the Russians to arrive.

That night, a party of SS men on motorcycles pulls up at the gate asking for gasoline. Though some prisoners are in favor of shooting them on sight, Pfefferberg suggests that it will be safest to just supply the gasoline. The men take the gasoline and cause no further trouble—this is the prisoners’ last interaction with the SS.

Finally, a lone Russian officer on a pony comes to liberate the camp. The prisoners let him in, and he gives a generic liberation speech in Russian. Once the speech is finished, he smiles and says he’ll answer questions. They talk with him on a more personal level, navigating a language barrier. The officer asks if there’s anything he can do, and they all ask for food, which he says he can provide. As the officer is leaving, Pemper and Bejski ask him where it’s safe for Jews to go. The officer says he doesn’t know and adds, “Don’t go east—that much I can tell you. But don’t go west either. They don’t like us anywhere.”

At the advice of the Russian officer, the Brinnlitz prisoners finally leave the gate to see some of the outside world, the youngest ones venturing out first. Eventually, the prisoners begin moving out, going to various places around the world.

At Linz, Schindler’s party reports to the American authorities, trading in their ambulance to be taken by truck to Nuremberg, which has become a center for freed concentration camp prisoners. Schindler is taken to a town near the Swiss border. Reubinski, one of the eight in Schindler’s party, recalls how their group was apprehended and suspected of being concentration camp guards in disguise (since they were better nourished than before and were carrying jewels and currency). Finally, they bring a Polish speaker to test Reubinski’s claim that he’s from Cracow. Reubinski breaks down crying and tells his story in perfect Polish.

The interrogators are so moved that they embrace the eight members of Schindler’s party. What little remained of Schindler’s wealth has already been passed along, but he is pleased to be with his chosen “family.”