62 pages 2 hours read

Thomas Keneally

Schindler's List

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1982

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Chapters 20-29Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 20 Summary

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.

Reiter’s execution convinces Schindler to never establish his factory inside Płaszów. Schindler hates Goeth and everything he stands for yet must interact with him to keep his workers safe since they’ll soon be kept in Płaszów. The camp’s existence and the declining ghetto severely demoralize Schindler, who seeks emotional support from Stern and other Jewish people close to him at DEF.

On March 13, 1943, the ghetto is liquidated in a final Aktion. All its residents are sent to Płaszów to work or to Auschwitz to be killed. The SS Commandos begin by executing doctors and their patients who are too sick to be moved or possess disabilities that preclude their being economically exploited. Dr. B and Dr. H, who run the ghetto’s convalescent hospital, contemplate death by suicide for themselves and their patients as the Aktion begins. With the help of an unnamed nurse, they feed their patients cyanide to give them a quick, painless death before the SS can reach them. The doctors and the nurse then flee.

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