How we cite our quotes: All quotations are from Schindler's List.
Quote #7
HELEN HIRSCH: My first day here, he beat me because I threw out the bones from dinner. He came down to the basement at midnight, and he asked me where they were. For his dogs, you understand. I said to him, I don't know how I say this. I never could say it now. I said to him, "Why are you beating me?" He said, "the reason I beat you now is because you ask why I beat you."
Like a lot of the Jews in this movie, Helen looks desperately for logic to the hate. There's none to be had. You endure the hate, you succumb to it, or you find some way to defy it. You can't ever understand it.
Quote #8
SS OFFICER: God forbid you ever get a real taste for Jewish skirt. There's no future in it. They don't have a future. That's not just good, old-fashioned, Jew-hating talk. It's policy now.
The SS officer's not talking in abstract terms. They really, truly intend to wipe every Jew from the face of the earth. "Policy" just means that everyone is perfectly okay with it. Their unemotional attitude about it makes it totally chilling. You don't even have to personally hate Jews to kill them. It's just what you do.
Quote #9
RUSSIAN OFFICER: Don't go east, that's for sure. They hate you there. I wouldn't go west either, if I were you.
A quiet sign at the end of the movie that the Holocaust may be over, but the prejudice that spawned it hasn't gone anywhere. Many Jews who tried to go back to their homes in Poland were killed by their neighbors.