Schindler's List: Key Facts

Full Title Schindler’s List

Director Steven Spielberg

Leading Actors Ralph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, Liam Neeson

Supporting Actors/Actresses Ezra Dagan, Embeth Davidtz, Miri Fabian, Caroline Goodall, Michael Gordon, Aldona Grochal, Mark Ivanir, Bettina Kupfer, Anna Mucha, Jonathan Sagalle, Andrzej Seweryn

Type of Work Feature film

Genre Docudrama; epic film

Language English

Time and Place Produced Kraków, Poland, 1993

Awards 1994 Academy Awards:

Date of Release 1993

Producers Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen, Branko Lustig

Setting (time) 1939–1945

Setting (place) Kraków, Poland

Protagonist Oskar Schindler

Major Conflict Schindler struggles to save a group of Jews from death at the hands of the Nazis.

Rising Action Schindler, a Nazi war profiteer and womanizer, upon witnessing increasing violence and killing of Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland, undergoes a slow transformation, becoming a compassionate man obsessed with saving the lives of the Jewish workers in his factory.

Climax As Schindler witnesses the evacuation of the Kraków ghetto, he sees a little girl in a red coat. The image and the violence he witnesses so move him that his humanity is awakened, and he realizes he must do something to help.

Falling action After witnessing the evacuation of the Jewish ghetto, Schindler realizes his factory is a haven for Jews and begins actively to give Stern expensive goods to use as bribes to bring more Jews into his factory, where he can keep them at least somewhat safe.

Themes The triumph of the human spirit; the difference one individual can make; the dangerous ease of denial

Motifs Lists; trains; death

Symbols The girl in the red coat; the road paved with Jewish headstones; piles of personal items

Foreshadowing Schindler has to rescue Stern from a train bound for a death camp, foreshadowing his eventual rescue of all of his workers. The appearance of tables for processing Jews foreshadows death. Schindler’s use of bribery early in the film for his own gain foreshadows his use of bribery to purchase the Jews.