62 pages • 2 hours read
Thomas KeneallyA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Content Warning: Schindler’s List depicts antisemitism, ableism, pogroms, graphic violence, extreme human suffering, substance abuse, racial bias, Nazi imagery, discussion of sexuality, racial and sexual slurs, and anti-LGBTQ+ bias.
The prologue takes place in the fall of 1943, when Schindler is already ingratiated into the inner workings of Płaszów and must work through Goeth to keep the prisoners safe. Thomas Keneally notes that he’s about to tell a tale of the “pragmatic triumph of good over evil” (14) and that Schindler isn’t a traditionally virtuous person: He’s a womanizer, a spy who joined an ultranationalist far-right party, and a profiteering capitalist, yet he risks everything he owns and his entire life to save strangers. Keneally sets the stage for the novel by mapping out Cracow: Schindler’s factory on Zablocie street, right next to the neighborhood of Podgórze (where the Jewish ghetto was located), is overshadowed by Wawel Castle (where the German mayor of Cracow, Hans Frank, lives).
Schindler attends a dinner at the Płaszów villa with Amon Goeth and several other SS men of importance—Julian Scherner, Rolf Czurda, and Franz Bosch—and pretends to be close friends with each of them, giving them small gifts and bribes that he can use to leverage favors in the future.
By Thomas Keneally
Books Made into Movies
View Collection
Books on Justice & Injustice
View Collection
Challenging Authority
View Collection
Contemporary Books on Social Justice
View Collection
Good & Evil
View Collection
Guilt
View Collection
Hate & Anger
View Collection
Historical Fiction
View Collection
Immigrants & Refugees
View Collection
Inspiring Biographies
View Collection
International Holocaust Remembrance Day
View Collection
Memorial Day Reads
View Collection
Military Reads
View Collection
Politics & Government
View Collection
Power
View Collection
Safety & Danger
View Collection
School Book List Titles
View Collection
Sexual Harassment & Violence
View Collection
Sociology
View Collection
The Booker Prizes Awardees & Honorees
View Collection
War
View Collection
World War II
View Collection