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Schindler's List

Schindler's List quotes

58 total quotes

Amon Goeth
Itzhak Stern
Marcel Goldberg
Multiple Characters
Oskar Schindler




View Quote [to his wife, Emilie] No doorman or maitre d' will ever mistake you again. I promise.
View Quote Stern: The standard SS rate for Jewish skilled labor is seven marks a day, five for unskilled and women. This is what you pay the Reich Economic Office, the Jews themselves receive nothing. Poles you pay wages. Generally, they get a little more. Are you listening?...The Jewish worker's salary - you pay it directly to the SS, not to the worker. He gets nothing.
Schindler: But it's less. It's less than what I would pay a Pole...That's the point I'm trying to make. Poles cost more. Why should I hire Poles?
View Quote [to Helen] I came to tell you that you really are a wonderful cook and a well-trained servant. I mean it. If you need a reference after the war, I'd be happy to give you one. It's kind of lonely down here, it seems, with everyone upstairs having such a good time. Does it? You can answer. 'What was the right answer?' That's-that's what you're thinking. 'What does he want to hear?' The truth, Helen, is always the right answer. Yes, you're right. Sometimes we're both lonely. Yes, I mean, I would like, so much, to reach out and touch you in your loneliness. What would that be like, I wonder? I mean, what would be wrong with that? I realize that you're not a person in the strictest sense of the word. Maybe you're right about that too. You know, maybe what's wrong isn't - it's not us - it's this. I mean, when they compare you to vermin and to rodents and to lice, I just, uh...You make a good point, a very good point. [He strokes her hair] Is this the face of a rat? Are these the eyes of a rat? 'Hath not a Jew eyes?' I feel for you, Helen. [He decides not to kiss her] No, I don't think so. You're a Jewish bitch. You nearly talked me into it, didn't you? [he beats her]
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 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 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.
View Quote Schindler: I go to work the other day. Nobody's there. Nobody tells me about this. I have to find out, I have to go in. Everybody's gone.
Goeth: They're not gone. They're here.
Schindler: They're mine! Every day that goes by, I'm losing money. Every worker that is shot costs me money. I have to find somebody else. I have to train them.
Goeth: We're going to be making so much money, none of this is going to matter.
Schindler: It's bad business.
Goeth: Scherner told me something else about you.
Schindler: Yeah, what's that?
Goeth: That you know the meaning of the word 'gratitude.' That it's not some vague thing with you like it is with others. You want to stay where you are. You've got things going on the side, things are good. You don't want anybody telling you what to do. I can understand all that. You know, I know you. What you want is your own sub-camp. Do you have any idea what's involved? The paperwork alone? Forget you got to build the ****ing thing, getting the ****ing permits is enough to drive you crazy. Then the engineers show up. They stand around, they argue about drainage, foundations, codes, exact specifications, parallel fences four kilometers long, twelve hundred kilograms of barbed wire, six thousand kilograms of electrified fences...I'm telling you, you'll want to shoot somebody. I've been through it, you know, I know.
Schindler: Well, you know, you've been through it. You could make things easier for me. [Goeth shrugs] I'd be grateful.
View Quote [to Schindler, presenting a ring] It's Hebrew from the Talmud. It says, 'Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.'
View Quote Russian: You have been liberated by the Soviet Army!
Stern: Have you been in Poland?
Russian: I just came from Poland.
Stern: Are there any Jews left?
Lemper: Where should we go?
Russian: Don't go east, that's for sure. They hate you there. I wouldn't go west either, if I were you.
Nowak: We could use some food.
Russian: [pointing toward the town of Brinnlitz] Isn't that a town over there?
View Quote Schindler: That's it. You can finish that page.
Stern: What did Goeth say about this? You just told him how many people you needed, and - you're not buying them. You're buying them? You're paying him for each of these names?
Schindler: If you were still working for me, I'd expect you to talk me out of it. It's costing me a fortune. Finish the page and leave one space at the bottom.
Stern: The list is an absolute good. The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf.
View Quote Schindler: [gambling with Goeth for Helen] I'll never find a maid as well-trained as her in Brinnlitz. They're all country girls...She's just going to Auschwitz # 2 anyway. What difference does this make?
Goeth: She's not going to Auschwitz. I'd never do that to her. No, I want her to come back to Vienna with me. I want her to come work for me there. I want to grow up old with her.
Schindler: Are you mad? Amon, you can't take her to Vienna with you.
Goeth: No, of course I can't. That's what I'd like to do. What I can do, if I'm any sort of a man, is the next most merciful thing. I should take her into the woods and shoot her painlessly in the back of the head...What is it you said for a natural twenty-one? Fourteen thousand, eight hundred?
View Quote Schindler: For each thousand you invest, I will repay you with two hundred kilos of enamelware a month, to begin in July and to continue for one year - after which time we're even. That's it. It's very simple.
Investor: Not good enough...
Schindler: Not good enough? Look where you're living. Look where you've been put. 'Not good enough.' A couple of months ago, you'd be right. Not anymore.
Investor: Money's still money.
Schindler: No it is not. That's why we're here. Trade goods, that's the only currency that'll be worth anything in the ghetto. Things have changed, my friend. Did I call this meeting? You told Mr. Stern you wanted to speak to me. I'm here. I've made you a fair offer.
Investor: Fair would be a percentage of the company.
Schindler: [laughs] Forget the whole thing. Get out.
Investor: How do we know that you will do what you say?
Schindler: Because I said I would. Do you want a contract? To be upheld by what court? I said what I'll do, that's our contract.
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 The list is an absolute good. The list is life. All around its margins lies the gulf.
View Quote Herr Direktor, don't let the things fall apart. I worked too hard.