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Auschwitz, overseen by Commandant Rudolf Höss, was the largest of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. Aside from a brief period when some of Oskar Schindler’s prisoners are transferred to Auschwitz, the camp is not the main focus of Schindler’s List. It has been well-documented in other accounts by survivors and historians, however, and the threat of being sent to Auschwitz always hung over the Jewish people in Poland, including in Cracow. The camp had three major subdivisions: Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II (a.k.a. Auschwitz-Birkenau), and Auschwitz III.
Auschwitz Quotes in Schindler’s List
The Schindler’s List quotes below are all either spoken by Auschwitz or refer to Auschwitz. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 33
Quotes
“I’m getting them out,” Schindler rumbled. He did not go into explanations. He did not publicly surmise that the SS in Auschwitz might need to be bribed. He did not say that he had sent the list of women to Colonel Erich Lange, or that he and Lange both intended to get them to Brinnlitz according to the list. Nothing of that. Simply “I’m getting them out.”
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Chapter 37
Quotes
To call either of them a speech, however, is to demean their effect. what Oskar was instinctively attempting was to adjust reality, to alter the self-image of both the prisoners and the SS. Long before, with pertinacious certainty, he’d told a group of shift workers, Edith Liebgold among them, that they would last the war. He’d flourished the same gift for prophecy when he faced the women from Auschwitz, on their morning of arrival the previous November, and told them, “you’re safe now; you’re with me.” It can’t be ignored that in another age and condition, the Herr Direktor could have become a demagogue of the style of Huey Long of Louisiana or John Lang of Australia, whose gift was to convince the listeners that they and he were bonded together to avert by a whisker all the evil devised by other men.
Oskar’s birthday speech was delivered in German at night on the workshop floor to the assembled prisoners. An SS detachment had to be brought in to guard a gathering of that size, and the German civilian personnel were present as well. As Oskar began to speak, Poldek Pfefferberg felt the hairs on his lice stand to attention. He looked around at the mute faces of Schoenbrun and Fuchs, and of the SS men with their automatics. They will kill this man, he thought. And then everything will fall apart.
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Auschwitz Term Timeline in Schindler’s List
The timeline below shows where the term Auschwitz appears in Schindler’s List. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 13
...teacher but in fact a metal polisher. Later that year, Szepessi will be sent to Auschwitz because of his leniency in matters like this.
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Chapter 16
...that he must be cautious, because more and more influential men are getting put into Auschwitz.
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Chapter 26
...during the inspection, the people of Płaszów were saved from being shipped somewhere worse, like Auschwitz.
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Chapter 28
...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,...
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Chapter 32
...Schindler line anyway but are caught and sent with a carload of sick women to Auschwitz. Though left to die there, most of them manage to survive.
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Chapter 33
...taking a different route, however. When the women get out, they realize they are at Auschwitz-Birkenau. SS men and women sort the Płaszów women into different groups. They are stripped and...
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All of this means that for their first eight days in Auschwitz, the “Schindler women” are at great risk of being gassed. They are separated, with some...
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Meanwhile in Auschwitz, the “Schindler women” move about carefully, knowing that they are presided over by Rudolf Höss...
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Though a lot of mythology surrounds Schindler’s dealing with Auschwitz, one certainty seems to be that he sent a young woman to Commandant Höss with...
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The officers at Auschwitz try to convince Schindler to abandon his quest, claiming that his 300 women have become...
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It is true that the women have been worn down by their time in Auschwitz. Clara Sternberg is one who gets separated from the main group and ends up in...
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...been ordered to look for children who can be used for Dr. Mengele’s experiments in Auschwitz. Several children, including Olek Rosner and Richard Horowitz, are spotted and rounded up. The parents...
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...the men and children is surprisingly polite—he tells them that after he takes them to Auschwitz, he is bringing the women to Brinnlitz. At one point, the officer even appears to...
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...with Manci Rosner, are horrified to see Olek Rosner and Richard Horowitz standing there in Auschwitz. They are concerned for the children, but Olek holds up his arm to show that...
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...moment, however, they must remain separated, with the women quarantined to avoid bringing diseases from Auschwitz.
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Chapter 36
...the winter of 1944 to 1945, they plan to get 3,000 more women out of Auschwitz. They will be sent to factories in Moravia that are harsh but endurable, camps that...
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...Moshe Henigman is one of the 30. Previously, he was one of 10,000 prisoners at Auschwitz who were marched in the cold to Gröss-Rosen, of which only 1,200 would survive.
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...prisoners. One subject of this deal is Benjamin Wrozlawski, who is an inmate at an Auschwitz subsidiary camp called Gliwice. When the threat of an impending Russian attack causes the Nazis...
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...Schindler’s most amazing feats involves the prisoners from Goleszów, a quarry and cement plant in Auschwitz. As the various parts of Auschwitz are being disbanded, 120 quarry workers from Goleszów are...
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