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
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.
As Schindler predicted, his particular garrison of SS members isn’t in the mood to make trouble. His speech may have helped reassure them that fleeing was a safer option than fighting.
Themes
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.
Schindler’s generosity even includes trying to get his prisoners set up for life after the war. Though his decision to leave the warehouse full of materials to his prisoners is generous, it is also at least partly tactical—being viewed as a wealthy German could cause invading Allies to view Schindler with suspicion.
Themes
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.
A Kapo is a prisoner, but one who is charged with carrying out the orders of the SS, hence this German’s bad reputation among other prisoners. It is perhaps unsurprising that the Jewish prisoners would use the opportunity to take revenge and equally unsurprising that many would regret it. A Panzer unit is a unit with armored tanks—the Panzer unit that passes by the camp is retreating, not actually attacking the camp.
Themes
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.
Though Schindler’s journey is relatively easy compared to some of the treks Jewish prisoners endured, it is still perilous. Even supposed allies could pose a threat, particularly to a German like Schindler.
Themes
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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.
Though the horrors of the Holocaust were becoming well-known, many Allied soldiers would not see what things looked like until they arrived at the camps in person.
Themes
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.
The last days in Brinnlitz are filled with tense waiting and suspicion. Though the worst is over, there is still ample room for things to go wrong—in this way, even though the war has ended, Jewish people’s fates are still fragile and uncertain.
Themes
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.
The case of the SS motorcyclists proves that the prisoners have internalized Schindler’s message from his speech—that mercy for the SS at the current time may actually be the best strategy.
Themes
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.”
The Russian officer provides a slightly surreal and anticlimactic ending to the war. Though he first presents himself as an emissary of his country, as he gets to know the prisoners, he becomes more personal and honest with them. The meeting suggests that even people from very different backgrounds can find common ground when circumstance brings them together.
Themes
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.
The presence of a Russian officer proves that Germans have abandoned the surrounding area and that it’s safe for Jewish prisoners to venture out.
Themes
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.
Schindler’s group faces suspicion because many Nazis were trying to use the confusion at the end of the war to escape to a place where they’d be safe. Fortunately, Schindler doesn’t have to lie, and he has Jewish prisoners with him who can vouch for his character. In this way, Schindler’s connections are still benefitting him even after the war—but this time, in contrast to life in Nazi-occupied territory, his connection to a Jewish person is an advantage rather than a risk.
Themes
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.”
The reasonable Allied interrogators contrast with the paranoid, seemingly irrational Nazi interrogators who have hounded Schindler and others throughout the book. The fact that Schindler is unconcerned about his wealth and is content with his chosen “family” serves as a final example of Schindler’s generosity and selflessness.
Themes
