Schindler’s List: Chapter 28 Summary & Analysis

Goeth has two young typists in his office: a German named Frau Kochmann and a prisoner named Mietek Pemper. Pemper will eventually work for Schindler, but in the summer of 1944, he is still very worried about the future. He has a photographic memory, which is what attracts Goeth’s attention but will ironically become important later, in leading to the hanging of Goeth.

As a typist, Pemper sees a memorandum saying that many Jews and dissidents from recently conquered Hungary will need to be kept in Płaszów. Goeth’s response (which Pemper either read or typed) is that they are up to capacity, but that he might be able to accommodate new prisoners if he is allowed to “liquidate the unproductive element inside the camp” and force prisoners to double-bunk. Typhus prevents Goeth from doing the latter, but he is allowed to ship out some “reject” prisoners to Auschwitz-Birkenau. In one day, he gets rid of as many people as Schindler will eventually save, saying that his Aktion is for “health” purposes. Many children, like Olek Rosner, will either be rounded up or forced into hiding.