Trama

In 1939, the Germans relocate Polish Hebrews to the Krakow Ghetto as World War II begins, after the German Army defeats the Polish Army in three weeks. Oskar Schindler (Liam Neeson), an ethnic German businessman from Moravia, arrives in the city hoping to make a fortune as a war profiteer. Schindler arrives from Czechoslovakia in hopes of using the abundant cheap labor force of Hebrews to manufacture enamelware for the German military.

Schindler, a member of the Nazi Party, lavishes bribes upon Wehrmacht and SS officials. Sponsored by the military, Schindler acquires a factory for the production of army mess kits.

Not knowing much about how to run such an enterprise, he gains a collaborator in Itzhak Stern (Ben Kingsley), an official of Krakow's Judenrat (Hebrew Council) who has contacts with the Hebrew business community and the black marketers inside the Ghetto.

The Hebrew businessmen lend Schindler money in return for a share of products produced. Opening the factory, Schindler pleases the Nazis and enjoys newfound wealth and status as "Herr Direktor", while Stern handles administration. Schindler hires Hebrew Poles instead of Catholic Poles because they cost less. Workers in Schindler's factory are allowed outside the ghetto, and Stern ensures that as many people as possible are deemed "essential" to the German war effort, saving them from being transported to concentration camps or killed. Meanwhile, Schindler maintains friendly relations with the Nazis and enjoys his new wealth and status as an industrialist.

SS-Lieutenant (Untersturmfuhrer) Amon Goeth (Ralph Fiennes) arrives in Kraków to oversee construction of the Plaszow concentration camp. Once the camp is completed, he orders the liquidation of the ghetto and Operation Reinhard in Kraków begins, with hundreds of troops emptying the cramped rooms and arbitrarily murdering anyone who is uncooperative, elderly or infirm.

Two thousand Hebrews are transported to Plaszow, and two thousand others are killed in the streets by the SS. Schindler watches the massacre and is profoundly affected. He particularly notices a young girl in a red coat who hides from the Nazis and later sees her body on a wagon-load of corpses. He nevertheless is careful to befriend Goeth and, through Stern's attention to bribery, Schindler continues enjoying SS support. Goeth brutalizes his Hebrew maid, Helen Hirsch, and randomly shoots people from the balcony of his villa. The prisoners are in constant fear for their lives.

As time passes, Schindler's focus shifts from making money to trying to save as many lives as possible. To better protect his workers, Schindler bribes Goeth into allowing him to build a sub-camp for his workers, under the pretext that he can keep his factory running smoothly. As time passes, Schindler tries to save as many lives as he can.

As the Germans begin losing the war, Goeth is ordered to ship the remaining Hebrews at Plaszow to Auschwitz concentration camp. Schindler prepares to leave Kraków with his fortune. He finds himself unable to do so, however, and prevails upon Goeth Schindler asks Goeth for permission to move his workers to a munitions factory he plans to build in Brunnlitz near his hometown of Zwittau, away from the Final Solution.

Goeth charges a massive bribe for each worker. Schindler and Stern prepare a list of people to be transferred to Brunnlitz instead of Auschwitz. The list eventually includes 1,100 names.

Schindler also plays a game of high card draw for one worker in particular, Helen Hirsch, who'd been serving as Goeth's housekeeper and had been a victim of his continual abuse. Goeth is reluctant, hoping to run away with her but knowing that such an action would result in his death as well as hers. He also floats the idea of simply executing her but finally decides to play Schindler for Helen's life. Helen is among those who board the train to Brunnlitz.

"Schindler's List" comprises these "skilled" inmates, and for many of those in Plaszow, being included means the difference between life and death. Almost all of the people on Schindler's list arrive safely at the new site. The train carrying the women is accidentally redirected to Auschwitz.

There, the women are directed to what they believe is a gas chamber; after a harrowing experience where their hair is crudely cut off and they are forced to strip, they see only water falling from the showers. The day after, the women are shown waiting in line for work. In the meantime, Schindler had rushed immediately to Auschwitz to solve the problem and to get the women out of Auschwitz. Schindler bribes the camp commander, Rudolf Hobb (Hans-Michael Rehberg) with a cache of diamonds in exchange for releasing the women to Brunnlitz. However, a last problem arises just when all the women are boarding the train because several SS officers attempt to hold some children back and prevent them from leaving. Schindler, there to personally oversee the boarding, steps in and is successful in obtaining from the officers the release of the children.

Once the women arrive, Schindler institutes firm controls on the SS guards assigned to the factory, forbidding them to enter the production areas. He encourages the Hebrews to observe the Sabbath. To keep his workers alive, he spends much of his fortune bribing Nazi officials and buying shells from other companies. He never produces working shells during the seven months his factory operates. Due to Schindler's machinations, the factory produces no usable armaments. \In his home town, he surprises his wife while she's in church during mass, and tells her that she is the only woman in his life (despite having been shown previously to be a womanizer). She goes with him to the factory to assist him. He runs out of money in 1945, just as Germany surrenders.

As a Nazi Party member and a self-described "profiteer of slave labor", in 1945, Schindler must flee the advancing Red Army. Although the SS guards have been ordered to kill the Hebrews, Schindler persuades them to return to their families as men, not murderers.

Bidding farewell to his workers, he prepares to head west, hoping to surrender to the Americans. In the aftermath, he packs a car in the night and bids farewell to his workers. They give him a letter explaining he is not a criminal to them, together with a ring secretly made from a worker's gold dental bridge and engraved with a Talmudic quotation, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire". Schindler is touched but deeply ashamed as he leaves, feeling he could have done more to save lives, such as selling his car and Golden Party Badge. He leaves with his wife during the night, dressed in Polish prisoner clothes, posing as refugees.

When the Schindlerjuden awaken the next morning, a mounted Soviet officer announces they have been liberated but warns them not to go east because "they hate you there". The Hebrews then walk into the countryside.

After a few scenes depicting post-war events such as the execution of Amon Goeth via hanging for crimes against humanity and a summary of what happened to Schindler in his later years, the Hebrews are shown walking to the nearby town. Schindler and his wife were declared Righteous Among the Nations and a tree was planted in his honor in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations.

The black-and-white frame changes to one in color of present-day Schindler Hebrews at Schindler's grave site in Jerusalem, where he wanted to be interred. A procession of now-elderly Hebrews who worked in Schindler's factory set stones on his grave-a traditional Hebrew custom denoting gratitude to the deceased.

The actors portraying the major characters walk with them. Ben Kingsley is accompanied by the widow of Itzhak Stern, who died in 1969. A title card reveals that at the time of the film's release, there were fewer than 4,000 Hebrews left alive in Poland, but more than 6,000 descendants of the Schindler Hebrews throughout the world. In the final scene, Liam Neeson places a pair of roses on the grave and stands over it.