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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Poldek Pfefferberg changes his profession from schoolteacher to what, in order to begin working for Schindler?

2. How does Poldek Pfefferberg get the Blauschein on his identity card?

3. How long did Schindler court Emilie before marrying her?

4. In which country does the novel take place?

5. What does Vernichtungslager mean?

Short Essay Questions

1. Chapters 26-30 describe several events that hardened Oskar's opinions and made him fight even harder for "his" Jews. List at least two of them.

2. Explain why you think pharmacist Bachner returned from Prokocim to the Cracow ghetto, rather than trying to escape to freedom.

3. Describe how some of the women escaped Gross-Rosen and made it onto "Schindler's list."

4. When Oskar is trying to leave Brinnlitz, his car won't start. What was the cause?

5. In Chapter 1, Keneally says "For Oskar, the Thirties must have seemed a mere epilogue to his glorious mistake on the Altvater circuit in the summer of '28." What does he mean by that?

6. In Chapter 26, Keneally states, "but he (Raimund Titsch) was never the sort of man concerning whom mythologies arose. Oskar was." What does Keanally mean by that?

7. Of the approximately 10,000 men who began the march from Auschwitz toward Gross-Rosen, about how many actually arrived, and what happened to those who didn't?

8. What did people like the Rosner brothers and Manci Rosner bring with them when they went to the countryside to "lose themselves among the peasants"?

9. The Trustees of Yad Vashem began to collect testimonies regarding Oskar. Were all of them positive? If not, what was a complaint?

10. What types of professions merited a blue sticker on the new identity cards, as described in Chapter 13?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

No novel can succeed without conflict. Many writers and writing teachers believe there are five basic kinds of conflict: man vs. man (or person vs. person), man vs. self, man vs. society, man vs. nature, and man vs. the supernatural. Some also believe in a sixth type of conflict, man vs. technology. What types of conflict have you observed in this novel? Be sure to give at least one specific example for each type that you list.

Essay Topic 2

Oskar Schindler made huge sums of money during the war, yet he died penniless, supported by those he saved. He tried starting two different businesses in two different countries, both of which failed. What factors did you recognize from the book that may have contributed to his ability to succeed during the war, but inability to make money in business after the war?

Essay Topic 3

In Chapter 9, Oskar's old motorcycle-riding friends push him toward a reconciliation with his father, even as Oskar can't bring himself to give up his mistresses and bring his wife to Cracow to live with him. He's also begun to be inconvenienced by the number of his workers being press-ganged each day to shovel snow or perform other menial tasks. Oskar originally saw his father as a larger-than-life figure, but when he finally spoke with him, Keneally says, "so Oskar decided that even Herr Hans Schindler was human." Describe how you think these things mirror each other, showing us the development in the story of Oskar Schindler as a more well-rounded person, allowing us to understand some possible motivation behind the risks he would eventually take.

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