Oskar Schindler: An Unlikely Hero

Oskar Schindler (third from left) at a party with local SS officials on his 34th birthday. Schindler attempted to use his connections with German officials to obtain information that might protect his Jewish employees. Krakow, Poland, April 28, 1942. —Leopold Page Photographic Collection
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Asked why he had intervened on behalf of the Jews, Schindler replied:
“The persecution of Jews in the General Government in Polish territory gradually worsened in its cruelty. In 1939 and 1940 they were forced to wear the Star of David and were herded together and confined in ghettos. In 1941 and 1942 this unadulterated sadism was fully revealed. And then a thinking man, who had overcome his inner cowardice, simply had to help. There was no other choice.”
—Oskar Schindler, 1964 interview.

Oskar Schindler’s actions to protect Jews during the Holocaust have earned him a special place among honored rescuers.

Schindler was an unlikely hero. An ethnic German living in Moravia, Czechoslovakia, he joined the Nazi party in 1939. In the wake of the German invasion of Poland, Schindler went to Krakow. He assumed responsibility for the operation of two formerly Jewish-owned manufacturers of enamel kitchenware and then established his own enamel works in Zablocie, outside Krakow. Through army contracts and the exploitation of cheap labor from the Krakow ghetto, he amassed a fortune. Dealing on the black market, he lived in high style.

In 1942 and early 1943, the Germans decimated the ghetto’s population of some 20,000 Jews through shootings and deportations. Several thousand Jews who survived the ghetto’s liquidation were taken to Plaszow, a forced labor camp run by the sadistic SS commandant Amon Leopold Goeth. Moved by the cruelties he witnessed, Schindler contrived to transfer his Jewish workers to barracks at his factory.

In late summer 1944, through negotiations and bribes from his war profits, Schindler secured permission from German army and SS officers to move his workers and other endangered Jews to Bruennlitz, near his hometown of Zwittau. Each of these Jews was placed on “Schindler’s List.” Schindler and his workforce set up a bogus munitions factory, which sustained them in relative safety until the war ended.

Oskar Schindler’s transformation from Nazi war profiteer to protector of Jews is the subject of several documentaries, the best-selling novel Schindler’s List (1982) by Thomas Keneally, and an Academy award-winning film directed by Steven Spielberg.

This 19th-century Italian violin belonged to Henry Rosner. Until the outbreak of war in 1939, Rosner was a professional violinist. He played in well-known cafes, hotels, and resorts all over Europe. During the war, Rosner was a prisoner in the Plaszow forced labor camp. In Plaszow, he frequently played for camp commandant Amon Goeth. When Rosner was transferred from Plaszow to a camp in Germany, he was unable to take his violin with him. Oskar Schindler had heard Rosner play at Plaszow. He bought the violin and presented it to Rosner’s wife, who was working in Schindler’s munitions plant in Bruennlitz. After the war, Henry Rosner was reunited with both his wife and his violin. He resumed his prewar profession and performed in New York hotels. —USHMM Collection, gift of Murray Pantirer, Abraham Zuckerman, and Isak Levenstein

RELATED LINKS

• Oskar Schindler
  
  (Holocaust Encyclopedia article)
• Annotated Bibliography
  
  (Library bibliography)
• Krakow
  
  (Holocaust Encyclopedia article)
• Plaszow
  
  (Holocaust Encyclopedia article)
• Rescue
  
  (Holocaust Encyclopedia article)
• Information on the Schindler traveling exhibition
  

 

via ushmm.org

Here is some information on Oskar Schindler from the Holocaust Museum. We really like the story about the violin towards the bottom of the page. There is something about the real value of human souls, and the things we have in this life, and our fates and how they play out. Quite moving.