In the fall of 1943, Oskar Schindler, wearing an expensive suit with a swastika on it, leaves his apartment in Cracow, Poland, to take a limo to the villa of the Płaszów concentration camp commandant, Amon Goeth. There, he meets Goeth’s Jewish maid, Helen Hirsch, whom Goeth abuses. During a private conversation they have in the kitchen, Hirsch offers her life savings to Schindler, hoping he will find a way to save her sister. Schindler accepts the money and tells Hirsch that the most important thing is to keep her health.
Schindler first comes to Cracow soon after September 1939, when Germany invades Poland at the start of World War II. He is a Sudeten German from Moravia, which was once part of Austria but is now part of Czechoslovakia. Schindler’s father was a heavy drinker and not much of a churchgoer, while Schindler’s mother was a devout Catholic. Schindler grew up racing motorcycles and turns out to be more similar to his father. His eventual wife, Emilie, however, is religious like his mother. The death of Schindler’s mother caused a rift between him and his father.
Germany invades Schindler’s homeland of Moravia in 1939, and shortly after, he meets a German named Eberhard Gebauer, who offers Schindler a position in the Abwehr, covertly gathering intelligence in Poland. In Cracow, Schindler meets a Jewish accountant named Itzhak Stern. The two talk and begin to trust each other. Schindler tells Stern about an enamelware factory that he’s interested in taking over, and Stern agrees to take a look at the books. That enamelware factory becomes Emalia, which earns a reputation among local Jews as a safe place to work, run by a humane man.
Schindler builds relationships with many other local Jews during his time running the enamelware factory. One of them, Leopold (Poldek) Pfefferberg, nearly shoots Schindler when he first sees him at the door, looking like an SS officer. Once the two get to talk, however, they find out they have a lot in common. Pfefferberg becomes one of Schindler’s most trusted allies, showing a particular skill for obtaining items on the black market.
Hans Frank, the Nazi governor of Poland, begins implementing harsher measures against the Jewish population. First, they are rounded up and confined to ghettos. Later, the ghettos are “liquidated,” with some Jewish residents being murdered on the spot while others are sent to live in Płaszów. At one point, Schindler and his German mistress, Ingrid, are disturbed to see a little girl (Genia) dressed in all red being rounded up with the rest of the people in the Cracow ghetto.
Life for Płaszów prisoners is dangerous, particularly because Commandant Amon Goeth is a cruel, erratic man who doesn’t hesitate to punish minor offenses with summary executions. Those prisoners lucky enough to get assigned to Schindler’s Emalia, however, are spared from the worst treatment—though Schindler constantly struggles, using his charm and connections, to keep it that way.
Eventually, the news comes that Płaszów will disband and all its Jewish prisoners will be sent to other camps (with many likely to die there or in transit). Schindler gets the idea of building a factory at Brinnlitz, which is in Moravia near his old home. The factory will ostensibly be producing arms for the war effort, and Schindler claims he’ll need his skilled Jewish workers from Emalia in order to meet production quotas.
Schindler begins putting together his titular list of Jews from Płaszów who will be rescued to his new factory at Brinnlitz rather than shipped to somewhere worse, like the Auschwitz concentration camp. The process of narrowing down the list is difficult, in part due to the meddling of a prisoner named Marcel Goldberg, who takes charge of who does and doesn’t make the list. Ultimately, however, Schindler is able to add over a thousand names, including the majority of his most trusted allies.
The male prisoners are shipped out first, and they arrive at Brinnlitz after only some minor disruptions. The female prisoners, however, are first shipped to Auschwitz and remain there for over a week. Despite enduring terrible conditions, they all survive until Schindler is finally able to sort out the mess and get them on a train to Brinnlitz.
At Brinnlitz, it becomes clear that Germany is losing the war. Schindler and his workers are still in danger, however, particularly because Nazi hardliners like Commandant Hassebroeck and Commandant Liepold oversee Schindler’s camp and are always looking for opportunities to interfere with it. Fortunately for Schindler, however, many of the SS guards assigned to his camp are middle-aged and have little interest in causing trouble.
Finally, news comes over the radio that Germany has surrendered. For Schindler, however, the celebration is brief because he must flee the country (in case the Russians find him and assume he’s a cruel camp leader like Liepold). He heads west with a small party, where they find sympathetic American soldiers.
After the war, Schindler doesn’t accomplish anything of note, although he continues to be honored and recognized for what he did during the war. He briefly moves to South America, then comes back, while his wife stays behind. He maintains close contact with many of the Jewish people he rescued, and they are more than happy to do what they can to support him. When Schindler dies, many of the people he saved show up at the funeral, and his death is mourned around the world.
