Schindler's List quotes

View Quote SS Officer: [to Schindler, about relocating to Plaszow] Since your labor is housed onsite, it's available to you at all times. You can work them all night if you want. Your factory policies, whatever they've been in the past, they'll continue to be, they'll be respected.

View Quote Rabbi Lewartow: [to Schindler] We've written a letter trying to explain things in case you are captured. Every worker has signed it.

View Quote End titles: Amon Goeth was arrested while a patient in a sanatorium at Bad Tolz. He was hanged in Krakow for crimes against humanity...Oskar Schindler failed at his marriage and several businesses after the war...In 1958, he was declared a righteous person by the council of the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, and invited to plant a tree in the Avenue of the Righteous. It grows there still...The Schindler Jews today....There are fewer than four thousand Jews left alive in Poland today. There are more than six thousand descendants of the Schindler Jews...In memory of the more than six million Jews murdered.

View Quote Adam Levy: [to the SS troops] I've searched the building. There's no one here... [to Mrs. Dresner] Come with me. I will put you in the good line.
Mrs. Dresner: You are not a boy anymore. I'll say a blessing for you.

View Quote Goeth: What I don't understand is that you've been working since I think what, about six this morning, yet such a small pile of hinges.
[Lewartow is led out to be shot, but Goeth's gun won't fire]
Lewartow: Herr Kommandant, I beg to report that my heap of hinges was so unsatisfactory because the machines were being re-calibrated this morning. I was put onto shoveling coal.
Goeth slams the gun into Lewartow's head]

View Quote Schindler: So, what can I do for you?
Krause: They say that no one dies here. They say your factory is a haven. They say you are good.
Schindler: Who says that?
Krause: Everyone. My name is Regina Perlman, not Elsa Krause. I've been living in Krakow on false papers since the ghetto massacre. My parents are in Plaszow. Their names are Chana and Jakob Perlman. They are older people. They're killing older people now in Plaszow. They bury them up in the forest. Look, I don't have any money. I-I borrowed these clothes, I'm begging you - please, please bring them here.
Schindler: I don't do that. You've been misled. I ask one thing: whether or not a worker has certain skills. That's what I ask and that's what I care about...Such activities are illegal. You will not entrap me, Miss Krause. Cry and I'll have you arrested, I swear to God.

View Quote Schindler: Why don't you build yourself up?
Helen: My first day here, he beat me because I threw out the bones from dinner. He came down to the basement at midnight and he asked me where they were - for his dogs...I said to him, 'Why are you beating me?' He said, 'The reason I beat you now is because you ask why I beat you.'
Schindler: I know your sufferings.
Helen: It doesn't matter. I have accepted them...One day, he will shoot me.
Schindler: No, he won't shoot you.
Helen: I know. I see things. We were on the roof on Monday, young Lisiek and I, and we saw the Herr Kommandant come out of the front door and down the steps by the patio right there below us. And there on the steps, he drew his gun - he shot a woman who was passing by. A woman carrying a bundle, through the throat. Just-just a woman on her way somewhere. You know, she-she was no fatter or thinner or slower or faster than anyone else and I couldn't guess what had she done. The more you see of Herr Kommandant, the more you see there is no set rules that you can live by. You can say to yourself, 'if I follow these rules, I will be safe.'
Schindler: He won't shoot you because he enjoys you too much. He enjoys you so much, he won't even let you wear the star. He doesn't want anyone else to know it's a Jew he's enjoying. He shot the woman from the steps because she meant nothing to him. She was one of a series - neither offending or pleasing him. But you, Helen. [He leans closer, as she pulls away] It's all right. It's not that kind of a kiss. [He tenderly kisses her on the forehead]

View Quote Hoss: I have a shipment coming in tomorrow. I'll cut you three hundred units from it. New ones. These are fresh. The train comes, we turn it around. It's yours.
Schindler: Yes, I understand. I want these.
Hoss: You shouldn't get stuck on names. That's right. It creates a lot of paperwork.

View Quote [to Pfefferberg] Boxed teas are good, coffee, pate, um, kielbasa sausage, cheeses, caviar. And of course, who could live without German cigarettes, as many as you can find. And some more fresh fruit - the real rarities, oranges, lemons, pineapples. I need several boxes of Cuban cigars, the best. And dark unsweetened chocolate, not in the shape of lady fingers, the chunk chocolate, big as my hand. You sample it at wine tastings. We're going to need lots of cognac, the best - Hennessy. Dom Perignon champagne. Get L'Espadon sardines. And, oh, try to find nylon stockings.

View Quote I violated the Race and Resettlement Act. Though I doubt anyone can point out the actual provision to me. I kissed a Jewish girl.

View Quote [to Stern, upon closing the factory deal]
My father was fond of saying you need three things in life - a good doctor, a forgiving priest, and a clever accountant. The first two, I've never had much use for.

View Quote The train with the women has already left Plaszow and will be arriving here very shortly. I know you've had a long journey, but it's only a short walk further to the factory where hot soup and bread is waiting for you. Welcome to Brinnlitz.

View Quote What are you doing? These are mine. These are my workers. They should be on my train. They're skilled munitions workers. They're essential. Essential girls. Their fingers polish the insides of shell metal casings. How else am I to polish the inside of a 45 millimeter shell casing? You tell me. You tell me!

View Quote [to Auschwitz guards] Under Department W provisions, it is unlawful to kill a worker without just cause. Under the Businesses Compensation Fund, I am entitled to file damage claims for such deaths. If you shoot without thinking, you go to prison, I get paid, that's how it works. So, there will be no summary executions here. There will be no interference of any kind with production. In hopes of ensuring that, guards will no longer be allowed on the factory floor without my authorization. [to the Commanding Officer, Josef Liepold] For your cooperation, you have my gratitude.

View Quote Today is history. Today will be remembered. Years from now the young will ask with wonder about this day. Today is history and you are part of it. Six hundred years ago when elsewhere they were footing the blame for the Black Death, Casimir the Great - so called - told the Jews they could come to Krakow. They came. They trundled their belongings into the city. They settled. They took hold. They prospered in business, science, education, the arts. With nothing they came and with nothing they flourished. For six centuries there has been a Jewish Krakow. By this evening those six centuries are a rumor. They never happened. Today is history.