Oskar Schindler

If you’ve watched the Steven Spielberg classic film, Schindlers List, then I expect you were moved by the courage shown by Oskar Schindler during the holocaust.

Although a member of the Nazi party, Oskar was a businessman that saw potential in the war to make money and, who through a series of circumstances, ended up bribing Nazi officials to save Jews from death in the concentration camps.

Unike Irena Sendler’s story of courage, Oskar’s tale is less obvious initially when he is fraternising with those punishing and killing Jews as depicted in the film as he buys Nazi officials drinks. It’s a hard watch and one I had to view in parts because the brutality was just too much to take in one sitting as it was well over three hours long.

The turning point came in March 1943 when Oskar witnessed the Kraków ghetto being liquidated and was appalled seeing hundreds of Jews murdered on the streets as they cleared out the ghetto. Those fit for work were sent to the new concentration camp at Płaszów.

Oskar bribed Amon Goth, the commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, and other officials, with money and goods from the black market. The famous ‘list’ refers to the list of names of Jewish people Oskar wanted to work in his enamelware factory in Kraków, thus saving them from the concentration camps. The list was typed up by Mietek Pemper, a Polish Jew who was Goth’s secretary.

He knew what he was trying to do was risky and he spent time in prison for kissing a Jewish girl and also for black marketeering.

When liberation finally came for the Jews, Oskar and his wife Emilie fled to West Germany and then moved onto Argentina. They separated and Oskar came back to Germany to live, after becoming bankrupt.

In a 1983 TV documentary, Oskar was quoted as saying,

I felt that the Jews were being destroyed. I had to help them, there was no choice.

Oskar died on 9 October 1974 and is the only former Nazi member to be buried in Mount Zion in Jerusalem.

In his final contact with the Jewish employees, they presented him with a ring inscribed with ‘Whoever saves one life saves the world entire’. Schindlerjuden refers to Schinder Jews and in 2012, there were estimated to be over 8,500 descendants living across the USA, Israel and other countries.

Oskar and his wife were named Righteous among the Nations in 1993. The film came out that same year winning seven Academy Awards in 1994 starring Liam Neeson as Oskar. Many of the survivors and the actors portraying them visit Schindler’s grave and place stones on its marker - the traditional Jewish sign of respect on visiting a grave - at the end of the film.

The German inscription on his grave reads, “The unforgettable Lifesaver of 1,200 persecuted Jews.”