Schindler's List

How is Helen (Commandant Goeth’s maid) treated by him?

1. Why did so many Jews come to the city of Krakow from the Polish countryside?
2. In the first scenes in which Schindler appears, how are you SHOWN (not told) that he is a man who knows how to get what he
wants?
3. Why does Schindler go to see Itzhak Stern, the Jewish accountant?
4. What does Schindler promise potential Jewish investors in return for their investment? Why would Jews be interested in investing in
Schindler’s project?
5. Why hire Jews instead of Poles? Who gets the salary earned by the Jewish workers? Why?
6. How does Stern rescue the university professor? What would have happened to him if he had not?
7. What does Schindler want the Jewish workers in his factory to make?
8. Earlier we saw Schindler getting his picture taken while partying with Nazi officers. We also saw him placing orders for luxury items
(chocolate, cigars, etc.) How does he use these things to his advantage?
9. Who is the woman who arrives unannounced at Schindler’s apartment door?
10. Schindler is proud that he has 350 workers. What does he see as their purpose initially?
11. Schindler thinks he will be remembered, and indeed he is, but it is not for what he predicts. For what does he think at this point he
will be remembered for?
12. Emilie, Oskar’s wife, says that ________________ makes all the difference between success and failure. Oskar says it is
__________________.
13. Emilie says if she is to stay, it must be on one condition. What is her condition?
14. What decision does Emilie make? What does this say about the relationship between husband and wife? What does it say about
Oskar’s character?
15. What happens to the one-armed man? Why?
16. When Schindler hears that Stern has been placed on a deportation train, he is very concerned. When he gets Stern off the train,
we find out the nature of his concern. What was he concerned about, and how does it differ from what we assumed?
17. What happens to the belongings of the deported Jews?
18. A Jewish worker is shown evaluating gold watches, etc. in the warehouse. What disturbing item is dumped in front of him to
evaluate? What is his reaction?
19. At the labor camp, what is Helen selected by the commandant to do? How does she feel about this?
20. Why does the commandant order the woman engineer to be shot?
21. Ironically, after he orders her to be killed, what direction does he then give?
22. Why according to the commandant of the labor camp (Amon Goeth) is “today history?”
23. During the liquidation of the ghetto, how does the family hide the jewelry?
24. What happens in the hospital ward?
25. How are the mother and the girl with glasses able to escape?
26. Where does the little girl in the red coat find a place to hide?
27. How do the soldiers locate Jews hidden in walls and under floorboards?
28. What is Schindler’s reaction as he watches the liquidation of the ghetto? Who is it that captures his attention during the
liquidation?
29. Why does Schindler go to the labor camp?
30. When the commandant is unsatisfied with the number of hinges a worker has produced, what happens?
31. How is Schindler able to get certain Jews added to the list of workers in his factory?
32. What does the woman who comes to see Schindler at the factory want from him? What is his response?
33. How is Helen (Commandant Goeth’s maid) treated by him?
34. Why does Schindler tell Helen that he’s certain Goeth won’t shoot her?
35. Goeth says that ___________________ is power.
36. According to Schindler, one truly has power when he does what?
37. Why do you think Goeth didn’t kill the boy who couldn’t get the bathtub stains off?
38. What ceremony is happening at night in the labor camp?
39. What happens to Helen?
40. Why are they playing music for the children?
They get shot in the head
41. List three places the children hide.
42. Why is Schindler placed in jail?
43. Why does Schindler suggest they do for the people in the cattle cars?
44. What do the Jewish prisoners see falling from the sky?
45. What happens to the little girl in the red coat? What is Schindler’s reaction?
46. Why do you think Stern finally wants to have a drink NOW instead of after the war?
47. What does Schindler do with the suitcases of money?
48. What is Stern typing? What is its significance?
49. Stern says, “The list is ________________.”
50. Why can’t Schindler add more names to the list?
51. What does Schindler do to get Helen on his list?
52. Name three things that happen to the women.
53. How does Schindler say he is protected?
54. What excuse does Schindler give the officers to save the children’s lives?
55. Who does Schindler see in church?
56. Why are the candles in color? Why do you think this is significant?
57. Why is Schindler considered a criminal?
58. What is Schindler’s present and what is inscribed on it?
59. What is Schindler’s reaction to receiving this gift? What does this say about him as an individual?
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Last updated by Razelle P #803049
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Goeth is passive aggressive towards Helen. He is attracted to her but loathes her because she is a Jew. Goeth is constantly at war with his own feelings over this. His internal conflict manifests itself in beatings of Maria interspersed with his version of kindness.

Sorry, you will need to submit your questions one at a time.

As I helped create this film with Spielberg here is what actually happened. The truth is that Helena and Goeth got along well and lived happily together, a fact which caused friction among survivors, as it did with all the pretty girls who fraternized shamelessly with nazis. Steve was all for making Helen pay, yet again, exposing her shameful truth, but I pointed out to him that she was obviously compelled, that she was likely still alive, that her family had not given permission for her to live as man and wife with a nazi, either, and that making her into any object of Jewish loathing would only encourage bigots. This came up several times, stereotypes against Jews that Steve Spielberg knew painfully well, the accusation of prostitution, the accusation of payoffs, etc., which we switched to be nearer the truth, that the nazis set up and accepted payoffs, petty bribery, etc. and to put the evil where it belonged, on nazi Germany, and not on innocent people ripped out of their lives.

So Helena is coerced and brutalized but not sexually, as of course, she was in real life at the time. She acquiesced and she survived. Every time we could, Steve and I switched the facts to diminish the real horror of nazi crimes. For instance, in the film the Hebrew cemetery face-up headstones form the surface of the roadway near the camp. In truth, the stones were buried face down beneath asphalt which was much, much worse, of course. To the Jews in the camp, the knowledge of the location of those stones in the road was as if they were all face up. It finally dawned on Steve that he could make the pavement of headstones "look great on film" and he made the final decision.

Source(s)

Original ghost screenwriter with Steven Spielberg.

Why hire jews instead of poles