Well, the parallel structure in Schindler's list is money/pwoer/hatred vs. human compassion.
Oscar Schindler was a smart man who took advantage of his country's sorry economical state. He opened a factory that produced things that people could buy/sell on the black market. He got the Nazi's permission to hire Jews to work for him so he wouldn't have to pay them, and in turn became a very wealthy man. Towards the end of the story though, he succombs to real compassion for the Jews- after seeing what horror had been bestowed upon them, and weeps at is own weakness of greed. He could have saved "more people, my ring- my ring could have saved 10 more people......" (or however many).
I think the thematic purpose is to show that even though the Nazi's were horrible and evil (their ideas were wretched and one-sided), they were also capable of being human, and feeling compassion for other human beings. And also, a lot of the Nazi's themselves had no idea of what was really happening to these people (they had never seen the horrific outcomes of their government's actions against the Jews).
It's been a long time since I've really sat down and watched the movie, but I deffinately got that from it.
Deffinately a great and profound movie/story. I should watch it again sometime soon.
