Schindler's List Scene 8 Summary

  • As the plant gets up and running, Stern discusses the business of slavery with Schindler, who talks about the price of human labor like he was talking about a box of merchandise.
  • We see Jewish people funneling into the ghetto, getting work papers from Stern as he secures the relative safety of work for Jews who could otherwise get shipped off to extermination camps.
  • We see the plant coming together as Jewish historians, musicians, and teachers are trained to reinvent themselves as metal craftsmen and enamel workers.
  • Oskar interviews Jewish women for his secretarial needs. He fawns over one beautiful woman after another, but disparages a large, dutiful, and extremely skilled woman (for a little laugh in an otherwise bleak several minutes). Schindler hires all the pretty women.
  • Oskar showers the SS with luxury items that he buys with the help of the Jewish black market traders from the ghetto.
  • He sends his carefully acquired contraband to flatter the SS mucky-mucks into large purchases of his enamelware products. He's building a business, and business has never been better.
  • Oskar tries again to celebrate his success with Stern, who seems to be genuinely perplexed and a bit disgusted by the idea.
  • When Schindler barks at Stern to at least pretend to drink to their success, he dutifully raises and then lowers his glass of cognac without drinking a drop.