In one of the most demoralizing scenes of the film, the Nazis exhume the bodies of those killed in the Krakow ghetto and burn them. The guards are laughing about it, and we catch sight of the little girl in the red coat in the pile.

There's more going on here than just the mass disposal of bodies. In Jewish tradition, cremation is forbidden (although some modern-day Jews elect cremation). The body of the deceased is washed and buried within 24 hours of death—this is thought to show respect to the deceased person. Cremation is just another abomination added to the Nazis' systematic murder. In Auschwitz, cremation went high-tech, as the Nazis built crematoria designed just for that purpose. The ovens could hardly keep up with the number of people gassed, starved, and otherwise killed.

In Keneally's novel, we learn that the Schindlers rescued a group of half-frozen women and children who'd been on a train for Auschwitz but were abandoned near his factory in Czechoslovakia. Many were dead after ten days in a cattle car without food, water, or heat. The Schindlers convinced the local authorities to let them bury the bodies in a plot of land they purchased. When Nazis suggested he just burn the bodies, he refused.