Oskar Schindler: 7 facts about the Nazi Party member who rescued 1200 Jews during the Holocaust
The 1982 novel Schindler's Ark is based on the life of Oskar Schindler, whose 109th birth anniversary falls today. The subject was later adapted to make a film Schindler's List in 1993.
"I just couldn't stand by and see people destroyed. I did what I could, what I had to do, what my conscience told me I must do. That's all there is to it." - Oskar Schindler
This is the true story of one remarkable man who outwitted Adolf Hitler and the Nazis to save the lives of as many as 1,200 Jews from the gas chambers than any other during World War II.
It is the story of Oscar Schindler, who surfaced from the chaos of madness, spent millions bribing and paying off the SS, a paramilitary organisation under Hitler, and eventually risked his life to rescue the Schindler-Jews.
Schindler rose to the highest level of humanity, walked through the bloody mud of the Holocaust without soiling his soul, his compassion, his respect for human life and gave his Jews a second chance at life. He miraculously managed to do it and pulled it off by using the very same talents that made him a war profiteer -- his flair for presentation, bribery, and grand gestures.
Schindler, who was born on this day in 1908, spent millions to protect and save his Jews, everything he possessed. He died penniless, but earned the everlasting gratitude of the Schindler-Jews. Today, his name is known as a household word for courage in a world of brutality -- a hero in the truest sense.
Today, on his 109th birth anniversary, we bring to you some interesting facts about the man:
1. During the Holocaust, in which Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about six million Jews, Oskar Schindler saved the lives of 1,200 Jews by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories.
2. In 1939, he joined the Nazi Party and continued to collect information for the Nazis, working in Poland, before the invasion of Poland at the start of World War II.
3. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Oskar Schindler set up an enamelware factory in Krakow where he gave employment to around 1,750 workers of whom 1,000 were Jews at the factory's peak in 1944.
4. Based on interviews with dozens of Holocaust survivors saved by Oskar Schindler, it is believed that his initial interest, of course, was to make money. But as time went on, he began shielding his Jewish workers without regard for the cost. To save the lives of his workers, he had to pay Nazi officials heavy bribes.
5. The 1982 novel Schindler's Ark is based on the life of Oskar Schindler. The subject was later adapted to make a film Schindler's List in 1993.
6. Oskar Schindler died on October 9, 1974 in Hildesheim, Germany and was buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion. He is the only member of the Nazi Party to be honoured in this way.
7. In 2012, it was reported that there are more than 8,000 descendants of the Schindler-Jews (Jews who were saved by Oskar Schindler) living in the US and Europe, and many other in Israel. Before World War II, the Jewish population of Poland was 3.5 million. Today there are between 10,000 and 15,000 left.
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