Amon Goeth Quotes in Schindler's List (1993)

Oskar Schindler: Power is when we have every justification to kill, and we don't.

Amon Goeth: You think that's power?

Oskar Schindler: That's what the Emperor said. A man steals something, he's brought in before the Emperor, he throws himself down on the ground. He begs for his life, he knows he's going to die. And the Emperor... pardons him. This worthless man, he lets him go.

Amon Goeth: I think you are drunk.

Oskar Schindler: That's power, Amon. That is power.

Amon Goeth: Today is history. Today will be remembered. Years from now the young will ask with wonder about this day. Today is history and you are part of it. Six hundred years ago, when elsewhere they were footing the blame for the Black Death, Casimir the Great - so called - told the Jews they could come to Krakow. They came. They trundled their belongings into the city. They settled. They took hold. They prospered in business, science, education, the arts. They came with nothing. And they flourished. For six centuries there has been a Jewish Krakow. By this evening those six centuries will be a rumor. They never happened. Today is history.

Amon Goeth: You want these people?

Oskar Schindler: These people. My people. I want my people.

Amon Goeth: Who are you? Moses?

Reiter: I'm a graduate of Civil Engineering from the University of Milan.

Amon Goeth: Ah, an educated Jew... like Karl Marx himself. Unterscharfuehrer!

Hujar: Jawohl?

Amon Goeth: Shoot her.

Reiter: Herr Kommandant! I'm only trying to do my job!

Amon Goeth: Ja, I'm doing mine.

Amon Goeth: This is very cruel, Oskar. You're giving them hope. You shouldn't do that. *That's* cruel!

Wilhelm Kunde: [Goeth is being driven round the Ghetto in an open top car] This street divides the ghetto just about in half. On the right, ghetto A, civil employees, industrial workers and so on. On the left, ghetto B, surplus labor, the elderly and infirm, mostly, which is where you will want to start. Any questions?

Amon Goeth: Ja. Why is the top down? I'm fucking freezing.

Amon Goeth: Oskar, there's a clerical error here at the bottom of the last page.

Oskar Schindler: No, there's one more name I want to put there. I'll never find a maid as well trained as her at Brinnlitz. They are all country girls.

Amon Goeth: [referring to Helen] No. No.

Oskar Schindler: One hand of 21. If you win, I pay you 7400 Reichmarks. Hit a natural and I make it 14800. If I win, the girl goes on my list.

Amon Goeth: I can't wager Helen in a card game.

Oskar Schindler: Why not?

Amon Goeth: Wouldn't be right.

Oskar Schindler: She's going to Auschwitz on Number Two anyway. What difference does it make?

Amon Goeth: She's not going to Auschwitz. I'd never do that to her. No, I want her to come back to Vienna with me. I want her to come to work for me there. I want to grow old with her.

Oskar Schindler: Are you mad? Amon, you can't take her to Vienna with you.

Amon Goeth: No, of course I can't. That's what I'd like to do. What I can do, if I'm any sort of a man, is the next most merciful thing. I should take her into the woods and shoot her painlessly in the back of the head. What was it you said for a natural 21? Was it 14800?

Oskar Schindler: Look, all you have to do is tell me what it's worth to you. What's a person worth to you?

Amon Goeth: No, no, no, No. What's one worth to you!

[Goethe admires Schindler's his suit]

Amon Goeth: It has a nice sheen to it. What is it, silk?

Oskar Schindler: Of course! I'd say I'd get you one but the man who made it's probably dead.

Amon Goeth: I would like so much to reach out to you and touch you in your loneliness. What would it be like, I wonder? What would be wrong with that? I realize that you are not a person in the strictest sense of the word, but, um, maybe you're right about that too. Maybe what's wrong, it's not us, it's this... I mean, when they compare you to vermin, to rodents and to lice. I just, uh, you make a good point. You make a very good point. Is this the face of a rat? Are these the eyes of a rat? "Hath not a Jew eyes?" I feel for you Helen.

[leaning forward to kiss her]

Amon Goeth: No, I don't think so. You Jewish bitch, you nearly talked me into it, didn't you?

[watching the incineration of Jews' bodies outside Krakow]

Amon Goeth: Can you believe this? As if I don't have enough to do, they come up with this? I have to find every rag buried up here and burn it. The party's over, Oskar. They're closing us down, sending everybody to Auschwitz.

Oskar Schindler: When?

Amon Goeth: I don't know. As soon as I can arrange the shipments, maybe thirty, forty days. That ought to be fun.

Amon Goeth: [Touching his reflection in a mirror] I pardon you.

[it's a scorching hot day and the Jews are packed into the cattle cars]

Oskar Schindler: What do you say we get your fire hoses out here and hose down the cars? Indulge me.

Amon Goeth: Hujar.

Albert Hujar: Yes sir?

Amon Goeth: Bring the fire hoses.

Albert Hujar: Where's the fire?

[Schindler and Goeth laugh]

[last lines]

Amon Goeth: [about to be hanged] Heil Hitler.

Amon Goeth: The truth, Helen, is always the right answer.

Amon Goeth: Scherner told me something else about you.

Oskar Schindler: Yeah, what's that?

Amon Goeth: That you know the meaning of the word 'gratitude.' That it's not some vague thing with you like it is with others. You want to stay where you are. You've got things going on the side, things are good. You don't want anybody telling you what to do. I can understand all that. You know, I know you... What you want is your own sub-camp. Do you have any idea what's involved? The paperwork alone? Forget you've got to build the fucking thing, getting the fucking permits is enough to drive you crazy. Then the engineers show up. They stand around, they argue about drainage, foundations, codes, exact specifications, parallel fences four kilometers long, six thousand kilograms of electrified fences... I'm telling you, you'll want to shoot somebody. I've been through it, you know, I know.

Oskar Schindler: Well, you know, you've been through it. You could make things easier for me. I'd be grateful.

Amon Goeth: That's a nice suit. Is that silk? It's got a nice sheen to it.

Oskar Schindler: I'd say "I'll get you one" only the man who made it is probably dead, I don't know.

Oskar Schindler: I go to work the other day. Nobody's there. Nobody tells me about this, I have to find out. I have to go in... everybody's gone.

Amon Goeth: No... no. They're not gone. They're here.

Oskar Schindler: They're MINE! Every day that goes by I'm losing money, every worker that is shot cost's me money, I have to find somebody else, I have to train them.

Amon Goeth: Don't be making so much money, none of this is going to matter.

Oskar Schindler: It's bad business.

Amon Goeth: They cast a spell on you, you know, the Jews. When 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 it all the time. It's a matter of money? Hmm?

Amon Goeth: [Loads a rifle and points it in her face]

Amon's Girlfriend: Amon, you're such a damn fucking child!

Amon Goeth: Wakey-wakey.

Amon's Girlfriend: Make coffee.

Amon Goeth: Make it yourself.

Amon Goeth: One of you is a very lucky girl. There is an opening for a job away from all this back-breaking work, in my new villa. Umm, which of you has domestic experience? Ja, on second thought, I don't really want someone else's maid. All those annoying habits I'd have to undo.

Amon Goeth: [addressing prisoners] Nobody knows who stole the chicken, hmm?

S.S. Guard: Tell him about the chicken!

Amon Goeth: A man walks around with a chicken and nobody notices this...

S.S. Guard: Save yourselves, save yourself. Tell him about the chicken!

Amon Goeth: My place is where?

S.S. Guard: There, sir.

Amon Goeth: There?

S.S. Guard: Yeah, its a villa.

Amon Goeth: You call that a villa!

S.S. Guard: The synagogue, can you see it?

Amon Goeth: That's not a villa...

S.S. Guard: We're planning on turning it into the camp stables.

Amon Goeth: It's a house!

Amon Goeth: [about to execute a prisoner when his gun jams] Oh, Christ!

Hujar: May I try that, sir?

[takes gun while prisoner cowers on ground]

S.S. Guard: Check the angle lever, maybe it's bent.

Hujar: No, no. You wouldn't hear a "click" if its the angle lever, it's the pin.

S.S. Guard: Maybe its the pin. Maybe the pin shaft is greasy?

Hujar: What did I just say? Here.

[hands back gun and it jams again]