Schindler's List Scene 26 Summary

  • A shipment of Hungarian Jews is about to arrive in Plaszow, and Goeth has to make room for them in the camp.
  • He decides to hold one of the dreaded "selections," where the healthy will be separated from the sick. It's a way to thin out the workforce.
  • Everyone's called from their barracks as Goeth casually discusses the situation with his doctor (he's getting a physical).
  • The prisoners are forced to completely undress and run naked through the yard to determine whether they're still healthy enough to work.
  • Some of the women prick themselves to draw blood and smear it on their cheeks like rouge to make it look like they're healthier than they are.
  • As the prisoners are being reviewed, the children are marched out of the barracks and loaded onto trucks.
  • The prisoners who survive the selection get dressed, relieved to be staying in the work camp.
  • But when they see their children, crammed tight into the trucks, pandemonium breaks loose and the women run screaming toward their departing children.
  • Some children manage to escape and hide in latrines, submerged in waste.
  • Prisoners who didn't make the cut are loaded onto cattle cars. Goeth hosts a sort of picnic on the platform to oversee the loading of prisoners.
  • It's a very hot day, and the Jews in the trains beg for water. They're dying of thirst and asphyxiating in the heat.
  • This gets to Oskar. He convinces Goeth to use the fire hoses to spray the boxcars down with water.
  • Goeth thinks it's a joke—all Oskar's doing is giving the prisoners false hope.
  • Probably so, but Oskar bribes an officer to spray the cars down with water at each stop.