Schindler's List corrections

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Schindler's List (1993) - 14 corrections

Directed by Steven Spielberg, starring Ben Kingsley, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes

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When Schindler rescues a group of children from being taken away for gassing, he argues with one of the soldiers that the small hands of children are necessary to polish the inside of .45 cartridge cases. The WW2 Germans used neither this caliber nor the inch-based designation; they used millimeters (7.92mm Mauser, 9mm Parabellum etc) for labelling cartridge sizes. [He is not referring to handgun cartridges, but to artillery shells.] Corrected by wizard_of_gore

Steven Spielberg wanted to shoot parts of the film inside Auschwitz, but was denied permission. He built a mirror-image replica of the camp outside its gates instead. [That's impossible. The concentration camp at Auschwitz is bordered on three sides by housing and on the fourth by the river Vistula. Nowhere nearby is there space to build a 'mirror image' of the camp.]

The girl in the red clothing, seen by Schindler as she tried to escape the ghetto, later reappears dead, exhumed and burned at the Plaszow camp, still in her red clothes. All Jews were told to disrobe completely before they were gassed at the camps, and their clothes were sent to Germany as part of the "Spinnstoffsammlung" action - collecting of clothes, boots etc. for the purpose of German soldiers and their families. It is very unlikely that the Germans made an exception and left one girl dressed. [The Nazis murdered MILLIONS of people. It is not unlikely that at SOME point they killed some people who were dressed.] Corrected by shortdanzr

When the train is taking Schindler's workers to Czeckoslovakia toward the end, they take an icicle from out the tiny window and melt it for water. When they next cut to a shot of the train trolling by, it's rather odd that the ONLY patch of ice on all the cars rolling by just happens to be over that one window. [Odd, but not impossible.] Corrected by AdmRose

Once his first factory is completed, Schindler sends some bribes to Nazi officials to get the permits. When the camera shows the officials enjoying their gifts, in the background we hear the voice of Schindler talking about his factory. He calls his factory "Deutsche Emailfabrik", when its real name is "Deutsche EmailWARENfabrik", as you can see in the front of the building. [He is using a common contraction. 'Fabrik' means 'Factory', and 'Waren Fabik' means 'Goods Factory', which is a precise description but pretty redundant. Everyone knows what he means.]

When Ben Kingsley is mistakenly forced onto a train and Liam Neeson arrives at the last minute to retrieve him, a clerk tells the conductor to stop the train. When the clerk walks back to Neeson with his clipboard, he walks from the direction of the back of the train, the end that would enter the station upon arrival. The train is leaving however, which means he should run up from the other side. [It is possible that the station had only a one way track, and once the train pulls in, the only way it could get out is to back out of the station and down the tracks to a switching station. The movie Escape from Sobibor's train station is like that, it is blocked off so the train can come into the station and only back out.]

When Goeth smacks Helen Hirsch, you can see the actress reacting before the actual hit. [No, you can't. You can see a woman recoiling before a blow from a man she knows to be violent, a perfectly normal reaction.]

In the scene at Oskar Schindler's birthday party when he kisses the Jewish woman, he is first holding her by her arms, then it switched to his hand are around her face, then right back to her arms where they started. [Schindler's hands never leave the girl's face.] Corrected by ChiChi

About fifty minutes in, Liam Neeson is searching for Ben Kingsley on a trainload of trucks. He has gone well past the truck with Kingsley in it, then the latter comes to the 'window'. In the next shot, Neeson is back along the train, right by that window. [Each boxcar has two windows. Schindler passed the first window,just as Stern comes forward and calls for Schindler. Schindler proceeds forward and Stern moves from the rear window to the forward window and calls for Schindler again where he is then noticed.] Corrected by ChiChi

In the scene where the train load of Jewish women are transported to a concentration camp instead of Schindler's hometown due to a paperwork error, the subtitles read "Auschwitz" as the train pulls under the concentration camp gate. This camp was not Auschwitz, it is Berkenau Camp which was located 2km west of Auschwitz Camp. [Birkenau (NOT "Berkenau") was a subsidiary part of the Auschwitz complex (often called Auschwitz II-Birkenau), just as Monowitz (often called Auschwitz III-Monowitz) was another subsidiary of the main Auschwitz camp. It is not inaccurate to label it with the overall "Auschwitz" label, as the complex took its name from the town of Oswiecim (later renamed Auschwitz) in which it first resided. See http://www.auschwitz.org.pl and you will note countless references to "Auschwitz II-Birkenau". Referring to the camp as "Auschwitz" also makes it easier for the filmgoer to understand just how much trouble the women were in, as most people are familiar with the name "Auschwitz" but do not know the name "Birkenau".]

In the scene when Schindler takes off his gold party badge and mentions that the gold in this badge could have saved many more people is wrong. The Nazi Gold Party Badge is only gold in colour and not content. Also the badge shown was the 'large' military version and not the civilian type that Herr Schindler would have had. [I spent 10 years in Germany and found out the gold party pin was really made out of gold, but only the military and high ranking civilians had them.]

In the internment camp scene, many Jews are stripped naked. However, many of the men are not circumcised. [Many of the men would not be circumcised because a lot of their families were not practicing Jews and were only deemed to be Jewish by the Nazis even if only one grandparent was Jewish.] In addition, there weren't only Jews in the camps, but Gypsies, POWs, homosexuals, political dissidents, and other "undesirables."

When the Commander in the camp wants to shoot the rabbi in the yard outside the factory, he several times pulls back the slide. Wouldn't this make one bullet come out of the gun every time he did? [No, not if the bullets were jammed, which I'm assuming was the reason the gun wouldn't fire.]

As the Jews are lining up to pay their respects to Schindler at the end of the film, Mrs. Itzhak Stern suddenly pops out of nowhere behind Mr. Leopold Pfefferberg. In the earlier shot, Helen Hirsch is clearly behind Pfefferberg with no-one in between them. [This scene was not meant to be in real time. There are many more obvious breaks between each new person stopping at the grave and leaving their stone. If the whole scene was filmed in real time it would have taken hours for all of the Schindler Jews to pass by.]