KrakowInformer.com

« back

Famous Cracovians: Oscar Schindler

Oscar Schindler

Oskar Schindler – a savior and a hero or a wastrel and womanizer? Nevertheless of his personal qualities it is and undeniable fact that ca.1200 Krakow Jews whom he saved from death during the 2nd World War owed him their lives. His wartime activity in Krakow was publicized through a Booker Prize winning novel ‘Schindler’s Ark’ by Thomas Keneally, who wrote it in 1982, having met Poldek Pffeferberg, one of the Jews saved by Schindler. An Oscar winning ‘Schindler’s List’ was a movie adaptation of the book directed by Steven Spielberg.
 
Schindler was a Czech German, born on April 28th in Zwittau, now Czech Republic, where he lived until his twenties with his parents – an alcoholic, brutal father and a mother, dedicated housewife. Young Oskar’s closest neighbors were a Jewish rabbi’s family, whom he stayed great friends with. In 1928 he married Emilie, who during the war helped him to nurse emaciated Jews saved from death camps. After her husband’s death Emilie Schindler wrote her memoirs in which describes in details her husband’s numerous affairs and lack of sense of responsibility as well as acts of sometimes desperate courage he commited to save people’s lives.
 
Shortly before the 2nd World War Schindler joined Nazi party NSDAP and became a spy for Nazi Abwehra intelligence. He even was imprisoned and sentenced to death by Czech court, yet was released based on the Munich Agreement. This won him future trust of the Nazis as for the one who ‘suffered for the Führer (Hitler)’.
 
Oskar Schindler’s presence in Krakow was merely on business at first. He moved here on September 7th 1939 looking for a possible business that would bring him money and provide a cover for his intelligence activity. Soon afterwards he became a leaseholder, and then the owner of „Emalia”, a formerly bankrupt Jewish enamel pots and pans’ factory in Lipowa St. in Zabłocie, an industrial district on the right bank of  Wisla river. The factory was then renamed ‘Deutsche Emalienwaren Fabrik’ (DEF) and having been extended tenfold it started producing enamel pots, pans and buckets for the German army, the Wehrmacht. Since 1941 „Emalia” started producing 37 mm missile shells as well as cannon and air missile fuses. To receive constant orders from the government he often resorted to expensive presents he gave to Berlin The factory was very profitable also due to black market trade.
 
At first Schindler employed Poles only, but since 1940 a cheaper labor force appeared – the Jews. Krakow citizens of Jewish origin were obligated to work unless they wanted to be deported to death camps as the inefficient. In years 1940 - 1944 the number of Jews increased from 150 to 1100. At first the workers came from the Krakow ghetto, but after it was liquidated, those who survived had to march eight kilometers (4.8 miles) daily to the factory and back. In 1943 „Emalia” became a branch of the Plaszow concentration camp – Schindler founded barracks for ‘his’ Jews so would stay inside the factory for the night and be protected from inhumane treatment in the camp. The official reason was to make the production more efficient, but really Schindler wanted to protect workers from the guards and ensure enough food and medical care.  He spent enormous sums buying black market groceries and medicine to improve his people physical condition and often held parties for the Nazi officials to keep their attention off the Lipowa St. premises. In case the Gestapo (secret police) raided „Emalia” at night, Schindler slept in his office. During visits at the Plaszow camp commander, Amon Goeth’s villa he met secretly some of the Jews and comforted them. Also Polish employees of Oskar Schindler praise their ‘director’, as they used to call him, for all the help he was to them – for constant employment, food supply, clothes and shoes.
 
All this and much more Schindler performed as a German citizen, an Nazi party (NSDAP) member, being constantly watched by the Gestapo and under a threat of being attacked also by the Polish underground resistance for exploitation and profiteering. He lived under enormous tension fighting underhandedly for people’s lives.
 
In 1944 the Nazis carried out a vast selection as a result of which majority of „Emalia” workers were sent to death camps outside Krakow, along with many Plaszow prisoners. The rest of the factory crew was forced to get back to Plaszow camp. With enormous bribes totaling one hundred thousand German marks Schindler managed to get a permission from the Nazis to open a branch of his munitions factory in a new place – Brünnlitz, a village near Zwittau where Shindler was born. All three hundred Jews previously working for Schindler were put on a special list – the so called ‘Schindler’s list’, along with some other prisoners of Plaszow.
 
The total of seven hundred men and three hundred women hoped to be transported to safe havens in Brünnlitz, yet only men arrived on time. The women were however taken – whether by accident or on purpose – to Auschwitz death camp, an actual hell on earth! It was then that Schindler presented the top of his persuasive skills. He intervened with the Nazi bigwigs, he bribed and flattered everyone he could and finally performed what is called a miracle: after two three weeks three hundred ‘Schindlerfrauen’ („Schindler’s women”) were let out of the place no Jew left alive before and afterwards. (It’s necessary to realize this was the one and only human transport in Auschwitz’s history that left the place, as trains used to bring the people in only. Corpse burning furnace’s chimneys were rather the common gate out).
 
Brünnlitz factory was actually a big and expensive fake – it produced thousands of useless missile shells, and Schindler spent enormous money to buy ammunition from other factories and to present them as Brünnlitz-made. The prisoners lived upstairs the factory hall, were sufficiently fed and protected from maltreatment to greatest possible extent. In January 1943 Schindler took in seventy four half-frozen, starved and exhausted men found locked in a cattle car on Zwittau station. Seventy of them were nursed back to life and joined the already overpopulated factory crew as ‘highly skilled missile laborers’.
 
Life in Brunnlitz was tough, yet far better than any other option available at that time. The factory managed to operate until 1945, the end of the War. When liberation was near Schindler gave each of his workers some woolen material and a bottle of vodka as a support package to start a new life. May 8, 1945 at night Schindler bid goodbye and left the factory equipped with a letter that would prove his loftiness to the Allies.
 
How did it happen that a man so in love with luxuries and worldly pleasures became so dedicated to protect someone whose life meant nothing at that time? Many psychologists have already tried to answer that question. Perhaps it was a mixture of compassion and love for living on the edge that he use for the noble cause, maybe something else? The fact is that only an unimaginable courage and strength of character, cunning and intelligence, great memory and the skill to win people over could lead to successful end, which was saving one of the largest groups of people sentenced to terrible death by the Nazi extermination system. He devoted his life, all possessions and also health to the extent of mental burn-out; after the war he was unable to continue his personal and professional life. He died poor on October 9, 1974 in Frankfurt.

Bookmark with:

© 2012 KrakowInformer.com

powered by