89 Fun Facts About Schindler's List

Under what title did Thomas Keneally first publish the 1982 novel that became Schindler's List?

Schindler's Ark won Britain's Booker Prize as fiction, though Keneally had built the book from the testimony of the people Schindler saved.

Who plays Oskar Schindler?

Liam Neeson won the part after Spielberg saw him on Broadway in Anna Christie. The director wanted an actor without movie-star baggage, so an interested Mel Gibson was passed over.

Who plays the SS officer Amon Göth?

Ralph Fiennes prepared by talking to survivors and reading their testimony about Göth, which he remembered as full of the physical fear people felt at the mere sight of the man.

In Schindler's List, what job does Ben Kingsley's Itzhak Stern do for Oskar Schindler?

His accountant: Schindler showed the real Stern the balance sheet of a run-down factory, took his shrewd advice to buy it, and the business made him a fortune.

What does Schindler's Kraków factory produce at the start of the film?

Enamelware: pots and pans for the German army. Schindler listed unskilled workers, even children, as expert metalworkers essential to the war effort, which kept the SS from deporting them.

In the closing scene of Schindler's List, what do the real survivors place on Oskar Schindler's grave?

Stones, a Jewish sign of respect for the dead. Spielberg flew 128 of the people Schindler saved to Jerusalem and filmed them beside the actors who played them, to show the story was true.

Schindler grew up in the Sudetenland, part of which country between the world wars?

Czechoslovakia jailed Schindler in 1938 for spying on it for German military intelligence; he walked free that October, when the Munich Agreement handed the Sudetenland to Germany.

What concentration camp does Amon Göth arrive to build and command?

Płaszów was laid out over two Jewish cemeteries on the edge of Kraków, and it filled in March 1943, when the SS emptied the city's ghetto and marched those fit for work into the camp.

What does Göth do from the balcony of his villa?

Shoots prisoners at random: the scene is history, not invention. Holocaust museums record that the real Göth often fired from the balcony of his villa at inmates working in the camp.

Who plays Göth's maid, Helen Hirsch?

Embeth Davidtz met the real Helen Hirsch, "this tiny firecracker", when the people Schindler saved gathered in Jerusalem to film the closing scene.

In Schindler's List, to which town near his birthplace does Schindler move his factory and workers in 1944?

Brünnlitz, today's Brněnec, was a textile mill the Nazis had stolen from its Jewish owners. In May 2025 the derelict site opened as the Museum of Survivors.

In Schindler's List, which camp commandant does Schindler bribe to free the women sent to Birkenau by mistake?

Rudolf Höss takes a pouch of diamonds in the film, but the real rescue was done at arm's length: Schindler sent his secretary to Auschwitz to bargain for the 300 women.

In Schindler's List, why does Schindler's munitions factory make no usable shells?

Deliberate sabotage: in the film he buys shells elsewhere to pass off as his own. The real plant turned out almost nothing usable either.

In Schindler's List, what gift do the workers give Schindler as he flees at the war's end?

A gold ring, cast from a worker's dental gold and engraved with a line from the Talmud: "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire."

In Schindler's List, how does the epilogue say Amon Göth died?

Hanged as a war criminal: Göth was executed in Kraków for crimes against humanity. He had been arrested while a patient in a sanatorium at Bad Tölz in Bavaria.

Which Schindler survivor, credited on the film as Leopold Page, spent decades pushing to get the story told?

Poldek Pfefferberg got MGM to commission a script from a Casablanca writer in 1963, and the deal died. Years later he pitched a customer in his Beverly Hills leather goods shop: the novelist Thomas Keneally.

What did executive Sid Sheinberg send Spielberg that sparked Schindler's List?

A book review: Sheinberg had read it in The New York Times and sent it over. Spielberg, astonished by the tale of a Nazi who saved Jews, asked, "Is it true?"

Which blockbuster did his studio make Spielberg direct before it would back Schindler's List?

Jurassic Park followed him to Poland: two or three times a week he used a crude satellite link to California to approve its effects shots, a chore he said filled him with resentment.

Which director, a survivor of the Kraków Ghetto, turned down Spielberg's offer to direct Schindler's List?

Roman Polanski, whose mother was killed at Auschwitz, said no. In 2002 he made his own Holocaust film, The Pianist.

Which director traded Schindler's List back to Spielberg in exchange for the Cape Fear remake?

Martin Scorsese was talked into the swap with a carrot: Cape Fear was a film he could make with Robert De Niro. Spielberg had come to regret giving the story away.

Who wrote the final screenplay for Schindler's List?

Steven Zaillian stayed on through years of drafts and won the Oscar for it. Spielberg pushed him to widen a script centred on Schindler alone into a story of the people he saved.

Which studio financed Schindler's List?

Universal put up about $20 million and expected little back, since Holocaust dramas rarely earned. The film took in more than $320 million worldwide.

What did Spielberg do with his salary for Schindler's List?

He refused to take one: being paid to tell the story of the Holocaust, he said, would have been "blood money".

Which star read for Oskar Schindler but struck Spielberg as too much the movie star?

Warren Beatty took part in a script reading, but Spielberg feared his movie-star baggage: the result would be Oskar Schindler as Warren Beatty rather than the other way round.

What title has Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, given Oskar Schindler and his wife Emilie?

Righteous Among the Nations honours non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews. Emilie earned it too: in the war's last winter she took in a trainload of Jewish prisoners sealed in frozen wagons and nursed the survivors.

How was the ghetto liquidation in Schindler's List filmed?

Handheld cameras: Spielberg left his cranes at home and worked without storyboards, stripping away what he called his safety net of fancy shots.

For Schindler's List, why were Birkenau's barracks rebuilt just outside the real camp's gate?

The World Jewish Congress objected to a drama being staged inside the death camp, so Spielberg offered a compromise: keep the real gatehouse in shot and build his barracks just outside it.

Which comedian phoned Spielberg every week during the Schindler's List shoot to cheer him up?

Robin Williams knew how hard the shoot was, so once a week he rang Spielberg in Poland and performed a stand-up routine down the phone.

In its colour opening scene, what is a Jewish family doing as Schindler's List begins?

Lighting Sabbath candles: as the last flame gutters the colour fades out and its smoke becomes the steam of a train. Colour returns to a candle flame only when Schindler's workers keep the Sabbath again.

Which cinematographer won his first Oscar for Schindler's List?

Janusz Kamiński caught Spielberg's eye with a television film called Wildflower. Schindler's List was their first feature together, and he has shot every Spielberg film since.

How was one girl's coat kept red in the black-and-white Schindler's List?

Shot in colour, drained by hand: every frame of those scenes was rotoscoped to strip out all colour but the coat. The cinematographer called it an old version of CGI.

In Schindler's List, what did Spielberg say the girl in the red coat stood for?

Allied leaders who did nothing: Spielberg called the coat a red flag waved at Roosevelt, Churchill and Eisenhower, who knew of the death camps. It was, he said, as obvious as a little girl in red.

What did Spielberg ask the girl in the red coat to do before seeing Schindler's List?

Turn 18, he told Oliwia Dąbrowska, who was three on set. She watched at eleven and was horrified; seeing it again as an adult, she was proud of her part.

In Schindler's List, why does Schindler first staff his factory with Jewish workers instead of Poles?

They cost him less: the daily fee for each Jewish worker went to the SS and the workers themselves got nothing. The real Schindler began the same way, then turned to shielding them whatever the cost.

Which violinist plays the solos on John Williams's score for Schindler's List?

Itzhak Perlman's violin carries the theme, which has had a long afterlife on ice: top figure skaters from Katarina Witt to Johnny Weir have built programmes around it.

In Schindler's List, who sings the Yiddish song heard as the Kraków ghetto is emptied?

A children's choir sings Oyfn Pripetshik, an old Yiddish song about a teacher drilling small children in their alphabet, while the ghetto's families are driven from their homes.

Who beat Schindler's List's star to the Oscar?

Tom Hanks won Best Actor for Philadelphia. Schindler's List collected seven Oscars that night, Best Picture and Best Director among them, but none for its cast.

Which city hosted the world premiere of Schindler's List in November 1993?

Washington, D.C.: President Clinton saw the film there and the next morning implored everyone to go and see it.

Which US network aired Schindler's List in 1997 without commercial breaks, the first broadcast to carry a TV-M rating?

NBC estimated that 65 million people watched at least part of it. An Oklahoma congressman who attacked the nudity and violence came under fire from fellow Republicans.

Which country banned Schindler's List as propaganda, its prime minister insisting on the right to ban any movie?

Malaysia's censors called the film propaganda for one race. The ban was later lifted, but only for a censored version, and the film never played there.

In the Philippines, what did Spielberg do when censors ordered cuts to Schindler's List?

He refused to show it cut, and the opening was put off until President Fidel Ramos overruled the censors and let it play uncut to anyone over 15.

Which Israeli song from 1967 plays as the freed workers walk across the hills at the end of Schindler's List?

Jerusalem of Gold was written by Naomi Shemer in 1967, just before the Six-Day War turned it into a second national anthem. The film plays it over a scene set in 1945.

Which organization did Spielberg set up after Schindler's List to film the testimony of Holocaust survivors?

The Shoah Visual History Foundation began filming in 1994 and gathered more than 50,000 testimonies. Since 2006 the archive has been housed at the University of Southern California.

Which director shelved his own Holocaust film, Aryan Papers, because of Schindler's List?

Stanley Kubrick had already cast his leads. He reportedly said the Holocaust was about six million people who get killed, and Schindler's List about 600 who don't.

Where does the AFI rank Schindler's List on its 2007 list of 100 greatest American films?

8th. Billy Wilder, who had asked to direct it himself in memory of the family he lost, told Spielberg afterwards that they couldn't have gotten a better man.

What did Spielberg reply when John Williams said Schindler's List needed a better composer?

"I know, but they're all dead," said Spielberg. Williams, left speechless by an early screening, wrote the score anyway and won an Oscar for it.

What did the city of Kraków buy in 2007 because of interest generated by the film?

The museum that opened there in 2010 covers the German occupation of the city from 1939 to 1945.

What did the studio want so Schindler's List would sell on video?

Colour film, urged the studio's chairman, so that the cassettes could be sold in colour. Spielberg refused: colour, he feared, would beautify the horror.

Which actor turned down the part in Schindler's List that went to Ben Kingsley?

Dustin Hoffman had already turned down Spielberg's Close Encounters. The two finally worked together on Hook, two years before Schindler's List.

Which sitcom's lead cannot stop making out with his date during a screening of Schindler's List?

Seinfeld sent Jerry to the film in the two-part episode The Raincoats, where Newman spots the couple and gleefully reports them to Jerry's parents. Larry David traced the idea to his mind wandering in temple.

Thomas Keneally first heard the story behind Schindler's List in a Beverly Hills shop selling what?

Luggage was the trade of a man Schindler had saved, and the novelist dropped in by chance in 1980 on his way home from a film festival. The owner pressed his files on him and urged him to write the book.

Which title role won Ben Kingsley a Best Actor Oscar a decade before Schindler's List?

Gandhi won him Best Actor for Richard Attenborough's 1982 epic. On the Schindler's List shoot in Poland he nearly came to blows with a businessman who had insulted an Israeli castmate.

Who hosted the Oscars on the night Schindler's List won Best Picture, the first woman to host alone?

Whoopi Goldberg was also the first African American to front the ceremony. She got the job only after Bette Midler and Johnny Carson had both turned it down.

What are Oskar and Emilie Schindler wearing as they flee by car at the end of Schindler's List?

Striped prisoner uniforms cover the couple and their driver as the car pulls away. As a Nazi Party member and war profiteer, Schindler had to outrun the advancing Red Army.

To which South American country did the real Oskar Schindler of Schindler's List emigrate to farm?

Argentina is where he tried raising chickens and then nutria, a rodent farmed for its fur. The venture went bankrupt in 1958 and he went back to Germany without his wife.

Oskar Schindler, the hero of Schindler's List, was jailed for doing what at his own birthday party?

Kissing a Jewish girl on the cheek broke the Nazi race laws and cost him five days in a cell. His well-placed Party contacts then talked the authorities into letting him go.

Where was a copy of the real list behind Schindler's List offered for $3 million, drawing no bids?

eBay hosted the ten-day sale in 2013 and not one bidder met the reserve. Several authentic versions of the document exist, because the names were retyped as conditions changed late in the war.

In Schindler's List, how does the Soviet officer who tells the workers they are free arrive?

On horseback and alone, he finds the workers asleep on the ground where they had said goodbye the night before. Asked where they should go, he advises against heading either east or west.

Schindler's List made famous a saying about saving one life; which Jewish text does it come from?

The Talmud is the source, and the workers had the words inscribed in Hebrew. Hearing them, Schindler breaks down, convinced he should have saved more people.

Which holiday did the German and Israeli actors in Schindler's List celebrate together mid-shoot?

Passover brought every German actor to the table, where they put on yarmulkes while the Israelis talked them through the Haggadah. Spielberg said race and culture were simply left behind.

Spielberg weighed shooting Schindler's List entirely in which two languages before choosing English?

German and Polish still surface in snatches of dialogue for realism. He dropped the full plan because he felt subtitles would give viewers an excuse to take their eyes off the picture.

To shoot Schindler's List like a documentary, which planning tool did Spielberg give up?

Storyboards went, along with Steadicams, elevated shots and zoom lenses, which he called his safety nets. He said the rough approach gave the film spontaneity and an edge.

What does Schindler get the SS to do for a sweltering trainload of prisoners in Schindler's List?

Hose down the cars is his suggestion on a hot day, made as the officers sip cold drinks on the platform. The commandant laughs it off as pointless, yet longer hoses are fetched from the factory.

What does Schindler carry into Auschwitz to buy back his women workers in Schindler's List?

A bag of diamonds wins the women back after a paperwork error routes their train to the death camp. Offered 300 fresh arrivals instead, Schindler insists on the workers he has named.

Who won the supporting actor Oscar over Schindler's List's Amon Göth for playing a US marshal?

Tommy Lee Jones took the award as Samuel Gerard, the lawman hunting Harrison Ford in The Fugitive. He accepted with a shaved head, kept for another part, and joked that he was not really bald.

Thomas Keneally, who wrote the novel behind Schindler's List, comes from which country?

Australia is his home, and he was born in Sydney to parents who both had Irish fathers. He has written more than 50 books.

Which US institution chose Schindler's List for preservation in the National Film Registry?

Library of Congress selectors added it in 2004, judging it culturally, historically or aesthetically significant. It was one of 25 films named to the registry that year.

Which institution's 1995 list of 45 important films included Schindler's List as its newest title?

The Vatican marked the centenary of cinema with the list, sorting its choices under religion, values and art. Pope John Paul II recommended the films for viewing.

Which veteran director hoped to make Schindler's List as a memorial to his murdered mother?

Billy Wilder had lost his mother, grandmother and stepfather in the Holocaust and wanted the story as his final film. He later wrote to Spielberg that the finished picture was perfection.

Schindler's List was the first black-and-white Best Picture winner since which Jack Lemmon film?

The Apartment won for 1960, and no black-and-white film took the top Oscar again for 33 years. Spielberg called the Holocaust life without light, which is why he shot it that way.

Which actress wife did Spielberg thank for rescuing him daily during the Schindler's List shoot?

Kate Capshaw moved into a rented house outside Kraków with their five children for the whole shoot. Spielberg said she rescued him ninety-two days in a row when things became unbearable.

Whose radio broadcast tells Schindler's workers that Germany has surrendered in Schindler's List?

Winston Churchill's voice crackles through the barracks of prisoners and guards alike. The real workers gathered on the factory floor to hear the same announcement on 7 May 1945.

On which hill is Oskar Schindler buried, the grave seen at the end of Schindler's List?

Mount Zion received him in 1974, making him probably the only former Nazi Party member so honoured. He had died in Hildesheim, Germany, after years of failed businesses.

Before the war, the Oskar Schindler of Schindler's List spied for which German intelligence service?

The Abwehr, Germany's military intelligence, had him gathering details on railways and troop movements. He was arrested for espionage in 1938 and freed under the Munich Agreement.

Which Vienna-born director was asked by a survivor in 1951 to film the Schindler's List story?

Fritz Lang, the maker of Metropolis, was the first filmmaker pitched the idea. MGM later paid Schindler an advance for a film to be called To the Last Hour, which also went unmade.

What held the Oskar Schindler papers found in a German attic four years after Schindler's List?

A suitcase he left with friends in Hildesheim shortly before he died sat in their attic until 1997. A Stuttgart newspaper ran seven articles on the contents, which then went to Yad Vashem.

Spielberg used Schindler's List as coursework to finish his film degree in 2002 at which university?

Long Beach State enrolled him after Southern California's film school rejected him for mediocre grades. He dropped out to direct television and came back decades later for his BA.

Which small part does producer Branko Lustig, an Auschwitz survivor, play early in Schindler's List?

The maître d' who pockets Schindler's first bribe for a good nightclub table is Lustig, held in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen as a child. He won a second Best Picture Oscar for Gladiator.

What comes out of the Auschwitz shower heads above the terrified women workers in Schindler's List?

Water falls after the lights go out, and the women weep with relief: they are in the delousing block, not a gas chamber. One New Yorker critic called it the most terrifying sequence ever filmed.

Which talk show host joined President Clinton in urging the public to see Schindler's List?

Oprah Winfrey pressed people to go, and leaders in many countries watched the film, some meeting Spielberg in person. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it a rare A+.

What do women prisoners rub on their cheeks to look healthy for a selection in Schindler's List?

Their own blood, drawn by pricking a finger, reddens their faces before the doctors look them over. Prisoners judged unfit are then marched to waiting cattle cars.

Schindler's List won Spielberg his first Best Director Oscar; which war film won him his second?

Saving Private Ryan brought the second, for his 1998 D-Day drama. The earlier win came with Best Picture as well, an award he shared with two fellow producers.

In Schindler's List, how does Schindler win the last place on his list for Göth's maid Helen Hirsch?

A game of cards, the blackjack variant Twenty-One, decides her fate for high stakes. The film never shows who won: Helen simply gives her name at the station, the last person on the list.

Where do children hide from the trucks taking them away in the camp selection of Schindler's List?

In the latrine pit, a boy named Olek drops through a toilet hole to find other children already crouched in the filth. They had been lured out of the barracks by a sing-along record.

What are Schindler's workers made to do when the SS shoot a one-armed machinist in Schindler's List?

Shovel snow is the order from an SS squad that stops the column on its way to the factory. The old man protests that he is an essential worker and is shot anyway, not long after thanking Schindler for the job.

What does the lead actor lay on Oskar Schindler's grave at the very end of Schindler's List?

Two roses go down after the last of the survivors has passed. Each survivor had walked up to the grave beside the actor who played them in the film.

What does Itzhak Stern at last accept from Schindler, having refused it earlier in Schindler's List?

A drink of cognac, turned down at their first meeting, is taken once the camp is to close and Stern expects to be sent to Auschwitz. He raises the glass slightly to Schindler before he drinks.

Spielberg cast the lead in Schindler's List after seeing him in which Eugene O'Neill play?

Anna Christie, revived on Broadway, earned the actor a Tony nomination as Mat Burke. His co-star in the production, Natasha Richardson, later became his wife.

Which late media mogul, a friend of Spielberg, is Schindler's List dedicated to?

Steve Ross, the Time Warner chief, died in December 1992, less than three months before filming began. Spielberg showed his lead actor film clips of Ross to convey the charisma he saw in Schindler.