Schindler's List

About the author
Thomas Keneally was born in Sydney, Australia in 1935. 
He studied to become a priest in the Catholic Church 
but gave this up in 1960 and became a schoolteacher. 
He published his first novel in 1964 and since then has 
written more than forty books of fiction and nonfiction, 
plus some plays. His family comes from Ireland and 
several of his books have been about that country and 
the Irish people. He has won top literary prizes in 
Australia and Great Britain and is now recognized as one 
of Australia’s best writers. In 1983 he was awarded the 
Order of Australia for his services to literature. Keneally 
published Schindler’s Ark in 1982 and it won one of 
Britain’s most famous literary prizes, the Booker. The 
prize is for fiction and, since the book is a true story, 
some people thought Keneally did not deserve to win it. 
In 1993 Steven Spielberg filmed the book under the title 
Schindler’s List and it won seven Oscars. Keneally is also 
a leading figure in the Australian Republican Movement 
and has written speeches and articles on the subject. He is 
married and has two daughters


Chapter 1: Oskar Schindler, the privileged son of a 
businessman and a Catholic mother, grows up in the 
German-speaking Sudetenland area of Czechoslovakia. 
A fun-loving and popular young man, he marries young, 
but neglects his wife in favour of a busy social life and 
work that takes him on long business trips. Although not 
particularly political he is initially a supporter of the Nazi 
party and soon agrees to act as an undercover agent to help 
the Nazis in their bid to seize Poland. His sociable nature 
helps him establish good relationships among people 
in high places as well as among ordinary people. These 
relationships will prove helpful to him later in the war.


Chapter 2: When Germany invades Poland, the Jewish 
people living there receive particularly harsh treatment 
– they are not allowed to work and their homes and 
possessions are taken from them. Many are also killed. 
The Nazis believe that Jews are ‘sub-human’ and plan to 
remove them from Germany by any means, even devising 
a plan to use the chemical Zyklon B to kill large numbers 
at once. Schindler, who is working as a businessman in 
Krakow, does not hate Jews. He counts among his friends 
several Jewish business owners, who he believes may be 
able to help him in his own businesses.


Chapter 3: In 1939, Schindler buys up and reopens a 
bankrupt enamelware factory with his Jewish friend Itzhak 
Stern. The DEF factory initially employs 45 people, 
but by 1940 the business has expanded to employ 250 
workers, 150 of whom are Jews. However production is 
often disrupted when Nazi SS soldiers detain and question 
Jews on their way to work. In 1941 a Jewish ghetto is 
established in Krakow, where all Jews are forced to live, 
under heavy Nazi control. Despite the growing difficulties, 
Schindler continues his business and continues to employ 
Jews.


Chapter 4: Schindler’s activities are noticed by the SS, 
but although he is twice arrested and investigated, he is 
well-connected and friends in high places come to his 
rescue. Meanwhile, life in the Krakow ghetto becomes 
harder and harder for the Jews, and many are taken 
away on trains to so-called ‘labour’ camps – the Nazi 
concentration camps where many will die. In the summer 
of 1942, when Schindler learns that a group of his workers 
are about to be transported, he rushes to rescue them. 
After witnessing Jews being forced from their homes and 
shot by the SS, Schindler realizes that the Germans plan 
to murder all of the Jews in Europe and determines to do 
what he can to work against the Nazi system.