History Film / SchindlersList

* ThreatenAllToFindOne: In one scene, Goeth and several of the Plaszow Guards interrogate a group of Jewish Prisoners to find out which one of them stole and killed one of their chickens. Goeth then shoots one prisoner dead, and asks again, with the obvious implication that he'll shoot them one-by-one until one of them confesses. Then, Adam Levi (the boy who helped save Chaja Dresner and her daughter Danka during the ghetto liquidation) steps forward in tears. Goeth accuses the boy of being the one responsible; Adam denies it, but Goeth infers that he knows who did it. Adam then points to the prisoner Goeth just shot and exclaims ''HIM!". After hearing this, Schindler puts him to work for him in his factory, protecting him from Goeth and the Nazis.[[note]]Goeth's body language suggests he actually knew the boy was putting one over on him, but was either amused or impressed enough he gave his approval for the boy to work for Schindler.[[/note]]

* ThreatenAllToFindOne: In one scene, the Nazis are demanding to know who killed a chicken. When no one confesses, none other than [[CompleteMonster Amon Goeth]] shoots a man dead. He states that they will continue to shoot someone until someone confesses to the theft. A young boy in the group starts crying. Goeth asks him if he was the one who killed the chicken. The boy shakes his head. Goeth then asks him, "But you know who it was, yes?" The boy slowly nods, still crying. Goeth then asks him, "Who stole it?" The boy points to the man who had been shot and killed, saying with all the conviction he can muster, "HIM!" Apparently it worked, as we see Schindler in the very next scene being told to add the boy's name to his list (which will get him a place in Schindler's factory, away from the death camps). [[note]]Goeth's body language suggests he actually knew the boy was putting one over on him, but was either amused or impressed enough he gave his approval for the boy to work for Schindler.[[/note]]

* HiredByTheOppressor: Defied. Industrialist Oskar Schindler needs workers in his factory, since the able-bodied men he had were conscripted to fight in the war. Schindler is allowed to shunt a few hundred Jews slated for the concentration camps as a replacement workforce. At first, Schindler is as much a [[CardCarryingVillain card carrying Nazi]] as any other Nazi official. By the time Schindler's factories have been converted into munitions plants, he had a HeelFaceTurn, and actively shields his workers from being sent further east and [[FinalSolution into certain doom]].

* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: A unique and famously powerful variation, where 128 of the real life ''Schindlerjuden'' walk hand in hand with the actors portraying them to lay stones on Schindler's grave. Liam Neeson himself lays down flowers, while subtitles inform you that Schindler was exonerated by a Jewish council, while also sharing the statistics of the Holocaust and those who survived because of him. The question is only ''when'', not if, you will [[TearJerker need tissues while watching it.]]
** After the Red Army officer points the factory workers to a town where they can get food, they begin marching, and the scene shifts to Amon Goeth standing on a chair under a makeshift gallows, surrounded by Red Amry soldiers. After he styles his hair and gives a dead-pan "Heil Hitler," the chair he's on gets kicked under him and is hanged, with the overscreen text saying Goeth was arrested while in a sanatorium and then tried, convicted, and executed for crimes against humanity. The scene shifts again to Schindler's now abandoned factory, and the narraiting text states he led several failed businesses after the war, and his marriage ended. He was invited to Israel in 1958 to plant a tree on the Avenue of the Righteous where it still grows. The final shot transitions from the factory workers marching to a nearby town to the actual surving workers and the actors who protrayed them to pay their respects to Oscar Schindler's grave (see above).

[Addressing his workers at the end of the war in 1945]

Oskar Schindler: The unconditional surrender of Germany has just been announced. At midnight tonight, the war is over. Tomorrow you'll begin the process of looking for survivors of your families. In most cases... you won't find them. After six long years of murder, victims are being mourned throughout the world. We've survived. Many of you have come up to me and thanked me. Thank yourselves. Thank your fearless Stern, and others among you who worried about you and faced death at every moment. I am a member of the Nazi Party. I'm a munitions manufacturer. I'm a profiteer of slave labor. I am... a criminal. At midnight, you'll be free and I'll be hunted. I shall remain with you until five minutes after midnight, after which time - and I hope you'll forgive me - I have to flee.

[He addresses the factory's SS guards]

I know you have received orders from our commandant, which he has received from his superiors, to dispose of the population of this camp. Now would be the time to do it. Here they are; they're all here. This is your opportunity. Or, you could leave, and return to your families as men instead of murderers.

[the guards gradually exit; he addresses the workers again]

In memory of the countless victims among your people, I ask us to observe three minutes of silence.

** Additionally, some reviewers singled out the scene where the female Schindler Jews are ushered into a shower room at Auschwitz, only to gasp in relief when it turns out to be a real shower room. That scene was taken directly from Thomas Kennealy's book. The Nazis really did this; prisoners who were chosen to work on their arrival at Auschwitz were sent to real showers and delousing. Those who weren't selected for slave labor on arrival were sent to fake showers and gassed. The Schindler Jews actually witness another transport of women and children being sent to the fake ones.

** Additionally, some reviewers singled out the scene where the female Schindler Jews are ushered into a shower room at Auschwitz, only to gasp in relief when it turns out to be a real shower room. The Nazis really did this; prisoners who were chosen to work on their arrival at Auschwitz were sent to real showers and delousing. Those who weren't selected for slave labor on arrival were sent to fake showers and gassed. The Schindler Jews actually witness another transport of women and children being sent to the fake ones. No small part of this was for the sake of keeping some veneer of deniability up - of course people get showered and not gassed, what silly rumors! Although by 1944, most people knew what that "snow" around Auschwitz was.

** Creator/RalphFiennes [[DyeingForYourArt put on 25 pounds to portray Amon Goeth]], which still left him much svelter than the RealLife commandant, who in some photographs appears to be [[FatBastard borderline obese]].

In sharp contrast to Hugo Boss, Siemens, Ford, and other firms that profited from slave labor (i.e. every major company in wartime Germany), Schindler actively endeavoured to keep his workforce alive and even preserve 'unskilled' workers who were not actually useful to him. The film's title comes from the "lists" he kept of skilled workers that he could not afford to lose--those lists eventually grew to include every one of his workers, their families, and the investors who had helped him buy the factory. At great personal risk and financial cost (he bankrupted himself), Schindler saved more than a thousand people from being either worked to death as slaves rented from the SS Main Business Directorate by German companies or killed as concentration camp inmates.

-->'''Creator/RogerEbert''': The key to his character is found in his first big scene, in a nightclub frequented by Nazi officers. We gather that his resources consist of the money in his pocket and the clothes he stands up in. He walks into the club, sends the best champagne to a table of high-ranking Nazis, and soon has the Nazis and their girlfriends sitting at his table, which swells with late arrivals. Who is this man? Why, Oskar Schindler, of course. And who is that? The Reich never figures out the answer to that question... Schindler's strategy as a con man is to always seem in charge, to seem well-connected, to lavish powerful Nazis with gifts and bribes, and to stride, tall and imperious, through situations that would break a lesser man.

* BigDamnHeroes: On a smaller scale the nurse and doctor who poison the sick patients at the hospital during the liquidation of the Ghetto. They allowed those individuals to die quickly, painlessly, and with a relative sense of peace compared to what the soldiers would’ve done to them. Though the fate of the doctor and nurse are not known, it’s reasonable to say that it did not end well for them.

-->'''Schindler:''' He is a wonderful crook. A man who loves good food, good wine, the ladies, making money-
-->'''Stern:''' Killing.

** Defied in another scene. During the construction of the Plaszow camp, a Jewish prisoner who has a degree in civil engineering is working on the project. When she complains that the foundation of one barracks needs to be fixed, Goeth orders one of his officers to shoot her in full view of everyone, even though she's the crew foreman. He simply says, "We're not going to have arguments with these people." The officer carries out the order, but [[SurroundedByIdiots groans while he does it]].

* TheCharmer: Oskar Schindler. He can make total strangers his close friends in next to no time, and uses his charisma to get a foothold in German industry. He later uses every bit of his power of persuasion trying to convince Goeth to become a more merciful person. [[spoiler: Amazingly, it seems to work, but Goeth quickly abandons it.]]

-->'''Schindler''': I made Goeth promise to put in a good word for you. Nothing bad is going to happen to you there, you'll receive Special Treatment.
-->'''Stern''': The directives coming in from Berlin mention "Special Treatment" more and more often. I'd like to think that's not what you mean.
-->'''Schindler''': ''Preferential'' Treatment. All right? Do we have to create a new language?
-->'''Stern''': I think so.

--> '''Schindler''': (inspecting his new apartment, which used to be owned by an evicted Jew) It could not be better.
--> ''Cut to''
--> '''Mrs. Nussbaum, the evicted Jew, now living in the ghetto''': It could be worse.
--> '''Mr. Nussbaum, losing it''': How? Tell me. ''How on earth could it possibly be worse?!?'' (cue 12 others sharing their tiny room)

** Schindler is looking for a secretary for his new business, but appears clear that he's looking specifically for a SexySecretary and ends up surrounded by a bunch of very attractive girls. Since he can't decide which to keep​, he ''hires them all''.

** Despite the fact that he gave up everything he had to save 1100 doomed individuals, in the eyes of the Allies he’s a Nazi War Criminal who profited off of forced Jewish labor and has to go on the run. [[note]] In real life he was able to sort everything out with American Officers fairly quickly. But had he been caught in those first few days it’s reasonable to say that he might’ve been summarily executed.

** After Oskar is able to pull Stern off the train to the Concentration Camp at the last second his only thought is where he would be without Stern. The look of both shock and disgust on Stern’s face says it all.
* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler: Amon Goeth]] is a downplayed example: while he is tried and executed like in RealLife, he dies a relatively quick and painless death by hanging, and [[DefiantToTheEnd just utters a monotone "Heil Hitler" before he dies.]]

* MessianicArchetype: Oskar Schindler.

** When the women are led into the showers, expecting to be gassed, [[spoiler: only to find out they are in actual showers. They are ecstatic to have survived, but then as they are leaving they see another batch of women going into a ''different'' set of "showers", this one beneath a crematorium...]]
** A bunch of prisoners are assembled and confronted by Goeth about a prisoner who has apparently killed a chicken. When nobody steps forward Goeth immediately executes one of the prisoners randomly. He then asks again who is responsible and within seconds raises his rifle towards another prisoner. Then a young boy steps forward. Anybody watching was certainly horrified, and even the guard behind Goeth looks very uneasy for a moment. Goeth in his very creepy way confronts the boy and asks if he did it, in tears the boy responds no. Goeth says “but you know who it was?” Tearfully the boy responds that yes he does. The tension is extremely high, when Goeth asks him who it was he points at the prisoner Goeth had just executed and loudly declares that he was the guilty man. Though you do not see his face Goeth’s body language suggests he knows he’s just been had but with some FridgeBrilliance we know he must have been impressed since he not only let the boy live, he let him work in Schindler’s factory.

--->'''Helen''': The more you see of the Herr Kommandant the more you see there are no set rules you can live by, you cannot say to yourself, "If I follow these rules, I will be safe."

* OhCrap
** Mothers in Plaszow does this when they see their children take away to extermination camps by trucks.
** Schindler does this when she sees the girl in the red dress about to be burned.

-->'''Goeth's Mistress''': [[LampshadeHanging Amon, you're such a damn fucking child!]]
* PunchClockVillain:

--->'''Creator/RogerEbert''': The Nazis accept his bribes and assume his purpose is to enrich himself through the war. They do not object, because he enriches them, too. It never occurs to them that he is actually saving Jews.

--->'''Creator/RogerEbert''': His insight here is that no one would walk into Auschwitz on such a mission if he were not the real thing. His very boldness is his shield.

--> '''Schindler''': I could have got more out. I could have got more. I don't know. If I'd just... I could have got more.\\
'''Stern''': Oskar, there are eleven hundred people who are alive because of you. Look at them.\\
'''Schindler''': If I'd made more money... I threw away so much money. You have no idea. If I'd just...\\
'''Stern''': There will be generations because of what you did.\\
'''Schindler''': I didn't do enough!\\
'''Stern''': You did so much.\\

'''Schindler''': This car. Goeth would have bought this car. Why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. Ten people. Ten more people.\\

'''Schindler''': This pin. Two people. This is gold. Two more people. He would have given me two for it, at least one. One more person. A person, Stern. For this. I could have gotten one more person... and I didn't! ''[crying]'' And I... I didn't! ''[sobs into Stern's chest]''

* ShownTheirWork: At the munitions factory on the final day of the War the German guards are all very old or very young. Anybody in between would’ve been on the front lines (and likely dead at this point).

--> ''This incineration of disinterred corpses was such a horrific procedure from the human, aesthetic, and olefactory aspects that it is impossible for people who are now used to living like ordinary citizens to be able to imagine this horror'' (quoted from the testimonies of Heinrich Gley, former Death Camp Belzec guardsman)
** Amon Goeth has a small one when he [[spoiler: attempts to execute a worker, only to have his second gun repeatedly jamming, same for the first one. Finally snapping, he just hits the worker's head with the gun with all his might, before leaving.]]

* VillainousRescue: ''Goethe'' of all people pulls this. When Schindler is arrested for kissing a Jewish girl, Goethe argues for his release, saying that Schindler was drunk. Which is technically the truth. Schindler goes free the next day.

* YankTheDogsChain: At one point, Goeth orders an enslaved rabbi (Lewartow) to make a hinge and times him, with the implication he will be shot if he's not up to snuff. Lewartow does well enough that Goeth actually ''praises'' him...and then decides to shoot him anyway, on the basis that he hasn't made ''enough'' hinges. [[spoiler: Miraculously enough, he survives when Goeth has not one but ''two'' guns misfire]].

** PlayedForHorror throughout the film. Many of the Nazis simply treat what they do to the Jewish People as though it is just regular office work. They torment Jews, send them to extermination camps, have them work to death, and regularly murder them violently; but they never bat-an-eye at their actions and are more concerned about general bureaucracy, doing their "jobs" well enough, and regularly complain about unnecessary paperwork, all while attending galas, parties, and other social gatherings on their off time. Essentially, the film portrays the Nazis as human beings, but it actually [[FauxAffablyEvil makes them]] ''[[FauxAffablyEvil more]]'' [[FauxAffablyEvil disturbing, horrifying, and shows how truly despicable they really were]].

* OhCrap: Schindler does this when she sees the girl in the red dress about to be burned.

* DeliberateUnderPerformance: Schindler makes sure his factory in Czechoslovakia doesn't produce anything.