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Who Was Oscar Schindler

Oscar Schindler, though the first name is spelt “Oskar”, was a German industrialist and a Nazi Party member. He was credited to have saved about one thousand two hundred (1,200) Jews during the Holocaust. How did he achieve this? This he did by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories in Poland.

Some writers, when telling the story of Oskar Schindler, start by saying: “This is the true story of one remarkable man who outwitted Hitler and the Nazis to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other during World War II”.

There are a lot you did not know about him which this article is meant to open your eyes to. Now did you know that?

Oscar Schindler grew up in Zwittau, Moravia. He worked in several trades until he joined Abwehr in 1936. Abwehr is a Nazi intelligence service. In 1939 he joined the Nazi Party. Before the Germans occupied Czechoslovakia in 1938, he collected information on railways and troop movement for the German government. This led to his arrest by the Czech government for espionage and release in 1938 under the Munich Agreement. 

But did you know that Oscar was not deterred by this arrest and incarceration. He continued to collect information for the Nazis, while working Poland in 1939 before the invasion of Poland just at the beginning of the 2nd World War. 

It was in 1939 that Schindler acquired an enamelware factory in Krakow, Poland which employed about 1750 workers in 1944. Out of this 1750, 1000 were Jews. The Jews under his employ were protected from deportation and death in the Nazi concentration camps due to Schindler’s Abwehr connection. This did not come cheap though - of course not! As time went on, Schindler had to give larger bribes and expensive gifts to Nazi officials, and these are items which can only be sourced in the black market. The essence of this is to keep his workers safe.

As the Germans started losing the war around July, 1944, they started closing down easternmost concentration camps and deporting the remaining prisoners westwards. Many were killed in Auschwitz and Gross-Rosen concentration camp.

Now what action did Oscar take at this point? He convinced SS-Hauptsturmfuhrer Amon Goth, commandant of the nearby Krakow-Plaszow concentration camp to allow him to move his factory to Brunnlitz in the Sudetenland. Goth’s Secretary, Mietek Pemper compiled and typed a list of 1200 Jews using names provided by Jewish Ghetto Police officer Marcel Goldberg and, these travelled to Brunnelitz in October 1944. 

Oscar Schindler continued to bribe SS Officials to prevent the execution of his workers until the end of the war. He spent his entire fortune on bribes and black market supplies just to keep his workers from persecution.

After the war Schindler moved to West Germany. There he was supported by assistance payments from Jewish relief organizations. After receiving an amount that he felt has covered, partially, his war time expenses he moved to Argentina with his wife Emilie, where they took up farming.

What you may not know was that in 1958 Schindler went bankrupt, he returned to Germany and failed at all of the business ventures he went into.  He had to rely on financial support from Schindlerjuden (Schindler Jews). These are people he helped during the war. He was named Righteous Among the Nations the Israeli government in 1963. 

Oscar Schindler died on 9th October, 1974.

There is a raging issue as to whether Oscar profited from the war! But did he?

Oskar was not a saint. In fact he cheated on his wife, drank excessively and spied for Abwehr.

When asked why he did it Oscar replied “I knew the people who worked for me. When you know people, you have to behave towards them like human beings.”

Schindler is credited with many acts of kindness. Abraham Zuckerman spent five of his teenage years in Nazi ks camps. He later recalled Oscar Schindler thus, “There were SS guards but he would say ‘Good Morning to you. He was a chain smoker and he’d throw the cigarette on the floor after only two puffs, because he knew the workers would pick it up after him. To me he was an angel. Because of him I was treated like a human being. And because of him I survived.”

What else could such a man have gained from such a war?