Oskar Schindler is an industrialist, German spy and protector of the Jews. He became a hero when he saved over a thousand people during the Holocaust by giving them jobs in his factories in Poland and the Czech Republic. For his work, Schindler was posthumously awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations.
Biography of Oskar Schindler
Oskar Schindler was born in 1908 in the Czech industrial city of Zwittau. In the area where Oskar grew up, there was a German-speaking diaspora of the Sudetes. His parents were Austrian Catholics. Oskar's father, Hans Schindler, was the owner of the factory, and his mother, Louise Schindler, was a housewife.
In the 1920s, Schindler worked in his father's factory for agricultural machinery. However, in 1928, the marriage of a young man to a woman named Emilia Pelzl caused problems in the relationship between the two men. In addition, the young man squandered all the money - his wife's dowry. Schindler left his father's business, started drinking, and was often detained for scandals and fights.
In the 30s, Oscar's affairs improved. He started working as an agent for a large bank and had money. As it turned out, his salary was paid by the Abwehr, the German intelligence service for which he obtained information. By 1935, many Sudeten Germans had joined the pro-Nazi German party. Schindler also joined, but not out of loyalty to the Nazis, but because it was easier to do business that way.
On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland. Schindler arrived in Krakow with his family, seeking to find a way to benefit from the war. In mid-October, the city became the new seat of government for Nazi-occupied Poland. Schindler quickly developed friendships with key officers in both the Wehrmacht and the SS (a special armed Nazi unit) by offering them black market goods such as cognac and cigars.
It was around this time that he met the accountant Yitzhak Stern, who eventually helped him build friendships with the local Jewish business community. Schindler bought a bankrupt tableware factory and opened it in January 1940. Stern was hired as an accountant, and 7 Jews and 250 Polish workers worked at Schindler's factory. By 1940, the businessman already had several enterprises: a glassware production, a cutlery factory and an enameled tableware factory.
Salvation of the Jews
The production was mainly occupied by Polish workers. But Schindler turned to the Jewish community in Krakow, which Stern told him was a good source of cheap and reliable labor. At that time, about fifty-six thousand Jews lived in the city, most of whom lived in the ghetto. The number of Jewish employees grew exponentially. In 1944, Schindler employed approximately 1,700 people, including over 1,000 Jews. Their salaries were lower, and they also worked much better than the Poles.
Subsequently, Schindler realized his involvement in the crimes of the Nazis and all the horrors that the Nazi regime was doing against the Jewish population. The businessman took the position of a humanist and began to defend the Jews without deriving any benefit from it. Oskar Schindler bargained for Nazi officials to hire prisoners from the Plaszow concentration camp in his factories. The exact number of rescued people is unknown, only in the known list, which was made by Schindler, there were approximately 1200 people. But he helped many more Jews.
In 1944, the Nazis began mass extermination of prisoners in concentration camps. Oskar Schindler managed to take over a thousand people to the city of Brenets (Brunlitz), thereby saving them from death during the Holocaust.
Life after the war
After World War II, the Schindler family emigrated to Argentina, and 10 years later the businessman returned to Germany. In the last years of his life, he existed only on donations from the Jews he saved and the benefits of Jewish organizations. Oskar Schindler died in 1974 and is buried in the Catholic cemetery in Jerusalem on Mount Zion. The slab on his grave is decorated with the inscription "Hasidi umot ha-olam" - "Righteous among the peoples of the world."
