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Oskar Schindler’s Story

            Perhaps one of the most famous stories of someone providing sanctuary to Jewish people from Nazi Germany is that of Oskar Schindler. Many have come to know Schindler’s story thanks to the 1993 film Schindler’s List. Schindler’s rescue of approximately 1,200 Jews is a very unique and interesting story of heroism. Oskar Schindler started off as a German industrialist. In 1936 he joined the Abwehr, the German military intelligence. He started to do some spy work in the Czechoslovakia. Consequently, he was arrested by the Czechoslovakian government for espionage. However, he was soon released and went back to Germany. In 1939 he became an official member of the Nazi Party. He went back to spying, gathering information on Poland just before Germany invaded. In 1939 he also obtained an enamelware factory in Krakow, Poland. He ran the factory making good money, but still remained part of the German intelligence. By 1944 his factory employed 1,750 workers, 1,000 of whom were Jews. By this time it was no secret that many of his workers were Jewish, but his Abwehr connections helped him save his workers. Initially Schindler decided to protect his Jewish workers to make money off of them, but not for long. He soon did it because grew to care about them and protected them with zero regard to what it cost him. Time and again he gave bribes and many fancy luxury items that could only be found on the black market to Nazi officials to protect his workers so that they would leave them alone. As the war drew to a close in 1944, many concentration camps shut down and Jews who stayed there were hauled off to places like Auschwitz to be killed. The Nazis had decided to shut down all factories that were not committed to the war effort but he managed to convince SS Captain Amon Göth, who was in command of the nearest concentration camp, to move his factory to Brünnlitz in the Sudetenland, and start making things for the war. Jewish Ghetto Police officer Marcel Goldberg provided Göth’s secretary, Mietek Pemper, with names for the 1,200 Jews to use to travel with.  Many of his workers were actually transported by mistake to concentration camps, some even to Auschwitz, but Schindler still managed to bribe and save all his workers. When the war was over Schindler had spent his entire fortune on bribing Nazi officials to save his workers. He moved back to Germany and got partially reimbursed for his efforts. He and his wife decided to move to Argentina to become farmers. When that failed he left and went back to Germany. He tried to be a businessman but again he failed, and relied on the Schindlerjuden, “Schindler Jews”, financially. Here was a man who spent his entire fortune and became bankrupt for people he barely knew. He was named Righteous Among the Nations by Israel in 1963. The effort he put forth to keep his workers safe is truly remarkable, and nothing short of heroic.

SOURCES

“Oskar Schindler.” The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, June 10, 2013, http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005787

"Schindler's List." The Righteous Among the Nations - Yad Vashem. The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, 2014, http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/righteous/stories/schindler.asp