Schindler's List Page #25

INT. CELL, MONTELUPICH PRISON - DAY

A water bucket. A waste bucket. No windows. This is not a

cell for dignitaries; this arrest is different.

Schindler, incongruous with the dank surroundings in his

double-breasted suit, slowly paces back and forth before his

cellmate, a soldier who looks like he's been here forever,

his greatcoat pulled up around his ears for warmth.

SCHINDLER:

I violated the Race and Resettlement

Act. Though I doubt they can point

out the actual provision to me.

(pause)

I kissed a Jewish girl.

Schindler forces a smile. His cellmate just stares. Now

there's a crime; much more impressive, much more serious,

than his own.

INT. OFFICE - MONTELUPICH PRISON - DAY

In a stiff-backed chair sits a very unlikely defender of

racial improprieties -- Amon Goeth. To an impassive SS colonel

behind a desk, Goeth tries to highlight extenuating

circumstances:

GOETH:

He likes women. He likes good-looking

women. He sees a good-looking woman,

he doesn't think. This guy has so

many women. They love him. He's

married, he's got all these women.

All right, she was Jewish, he

shouldn't have done it. But you didn't

see this girl. I saw this girl. This

girl was very good-looking.

Goeth tries to read the guy behind the desk, but his face is

like a wall.

GOETH:

They cast a spell on you, you know,

the Jews. You work closely with them

like I do, you see this. They have

this power, it's like a virus. Some

of my men are infected with this

virus. They should be pitied, not

punished. They should receive

treatment, because this is as real

as typhus. I see this all the time.

Goeth shifts in his chair; he knows he's not getting anywhere

with this guy. He switches tacts:

GOETH:

It's a matter of money? We can discuss

that. That'd be all right with me.

In the silence that follows, Goeth realizes he has made a

serious error in judgment. This man sitting soberly before

him is one of that rare breed -- the unbribable official.

SS COLONEL:

You're offering me a bribe?

GOETH:

A "bribe?" No, no, please come on...

a gratuity.

Suddenly the man stands up and salutes, which thoroughly

confuses Goeth since Goeth is his inferior in rank. But he

isn't saluting Goeth, he's saluting the officer who has just

stepped into the room behind him.

SCHERNER:

Sit down.

The colonel sits back down. Scherner pulls up a chair next

to Goeth.

SCHERNER:

Hello, Amon.

GOETH:

Sir.

Scherner smiles and allows Goeth to shake his hand, but it's

clear, even to Goeth himself, that he has fallen from grace.

INT. GOETH'S VILLA - PLASZOW - NIGHT

A tall, thin, gray Waffen SS officer has a request for the

Rosner brothers.

SS OFFICER:

I want to hear "Gloomy Sunday" again.

He's drunk, morose; it seems unlikely he'll be on his feet

much longer. Indeed, as Henry and Leo Rosner begin the son --

an excessively melancholy tale in which a young man commits

suicide for love -- the field officer staggers over to a

chair in the corner of the crowded room and slumps into it.

SCHERNER:

We give you Jewish girls at five

marks a day, Oskar, you should kiss

us, not them.

Goeth laughs too loud, drawing a weary glance from Scherner.

Schindler smiles good-naturedly. He's out, a little worse

for wear perhaps, a little more subdued than usual. Taking

him away from the others, taking him into his confidence --

GOETH:

God forbid you ever get a real taste

for Jewish skirt. There's no future

in it. No future. They don't have a

future. And that's not just good old-

fashioned Jew-hating talk. It's policy

now.

THE THIN GRAY SS OFFICER is back in front of the musicians,

swaying precariously, a drink in his hand --

SS OFFICER:

"Gloomy Sunday" again.

Again they play the song. Again he staggers across the crowded

room to his chair in the corner, paying no attention to the

visiting Commandant from Treblinka or anybody else --

TREBLINKA GUY:

-- We can process at Treblinka, if

everything is working? I don't know,

maybe two thousand units a day.

He shrugs like it's nothing, or with modesty, it's unclear.

Goeth is dully impressed; Schindler, only politely so.

TREBLINKA GUY:

Now Auschwitz. Now you're talking.

What I got is nothing, it's like

a... a machine. Auschwitz, though,

now there's a death factory. There,

they know how to do it. There, they

know what they're doing.

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