Saviour of Jews in Nazi Germany

There is a common quote among us, ‘Do something good; no one remembers, do something bad; no one forgets’. But the protagonist of the story that I am going to narrate makes that quote seem inaccurate. For himself, though he is convicted for doing numerous bad things, is only remembered for the good he did. He is Oskar Schindler and this is his story.

Schindler was a drunkard. Schindler was a womanizer. His relations with his wife were bad. He often had not one but several girlfriends. Everything he did put him in jeopardy, Yet during the Second World War, what stood between 1200 Jews in the Krakow Ghetto and liquidation was the same man, doing his utmost best to save the lives of Jews.     

Born in 1908 to a family of businessmen in Zwittau, Moravia, then a German province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and now part of the Czech Republic, he had a younger sister Elfriede with whom he had a close relationship despite their seven-year age difference. Oskar's father, Hans Schindler, was a factory owner and his mother, Louisa Schindler, was a homemaker. Oskar in his childhood was a popular and a friendly student but he was not an exceptional one.

Initially motivated by his selfish interests in war profiteering and money making, in 1939 Schindler came to Krakow, Poland. He was able to create friendships with key SS (special Nazi armed unit) officials often by bribing them and giving them black market gifts. In 1940 he opened an enamelware factory (Deutsche Enamelware Factory) with the help of his hired Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern and using his natural flair, he kept on bribing SS officials to get major contracts to his business. With Stern’s advice Schindler hired Jews to work in his factory because they were considered a source of ‘cheap and reliable labour’.

He eventually was able to create a bond with his ‘reliable labour’ and another side of him, which sympathized the Jews and the many humiliations they had to undergo emerged. He then worked towards saving their lives by bribing the authorities. He spent his entire fortune to save his workers whom he now referred to as ‘my children’.

In his factory, Nazi guards were only allowed outsides the gates and if they had to come into the factory premises, it was done under the authority of Schindler himself. Workers referred to his factory as ‘heaven’. No unnatural deaths occurred inside his factory. These were the same years when millions of Jews died in Nazi death camps like Treblinka and Auschwitz, but miraculous survivors were Schindler’s Jews for they were protected by him. 

As a result of employing all his persuasive powers, uninhibited bribing, fighting and even begging, he was able to get permission from the authorities to move his factory to Brunnlitz, Czechoslovakia not to make profits but to save the lives of his workers by taking them with him since the Nazis had decided to dissolve and close all the satellite camps at Plazow.   

Schindler together with his accountant Stern, made a list, which is commonly known as Schindler’s list of 1200 Jews to be taken to Brunnlitz consisting of men, women and even children.           

Schindler’s Jews survived the holocaust and he earned their everlasting gratitude. What mattered to them was that he who emerged out of chaos of madness and risked everything to save them.

 

He died on October 9^th 1974 and was buried in Jerusalem.

Today there are more than 6,000 descendants of Schindler`s Jews living in the USA and Europe, and many in Israel. Before the Second World War, the Jewish population of Poland was 3.5 million. Today there are between 3,000 and 4,000 left.

No matter how bad he was, he will always be only remembered for the good he did to Jews. He was successful in life.

A movie based on the life of Oskar Schindler was made in 1993 which was directed by Steven Spielberg and Liam Neeson starred as Schinldler. I personally think that it is 
a 'must watch' and that movie was what persuaded me to write this.