Oskar Schindler was a man, who saved the life of 1200 people. We don’t know really much about his childhood, but that is known, that he was born on the 28th of April 1908 in Zwittau- nowadays Svitavy, which is located in Moravia, or then it was known as Sudetenland, near Brno. We know, that three cultures, or ethnicities lived in that Small town – they were Czechs, Germans, and Jews. In the same street, where he grew up, lived a rabbi with its family, and he was playing almost every day with his children. Maybe this is the reason that he decided to rescue the Jews later in his life from absolute death. He was brought up in Catholic faith, but wasn’t really religious. It is also known, that he was expelled from school, because he was falsifying school documents, especially school certificates.
As I said, Schindler wasn’t so religious – he liked women, alcohol and fast motorcycles. So nobody knows why he fell into love with a really religious woman, who he married later. But this marriage wasn’t joyful: at first it caused problems between Oskar and his father, and the consequence was that he left the family business and started to work as a salesman. After Hitler came to power in Germany, He joined the Sudeten German Party, but not because he liked their ideology, but because he wanted to make a lot of money. This caused that he joined the Abwehr, or the German intelligence service, which means that he worked also as a spy, but only for money.
When the Germans invaded Poland, he knew that some businesses will be taken from Jews, so he went to Krakow to see if he could do anything for getting a local business, which he wanted to buy from the money he got from the Abwehr. But at first, to get some business in Krakow, he should have known somebody to get it as quickly as possible. So he first spent his money on the black market actually to get the items that weren’t available in the shops for ex. Brandy, fine clothes like silk, American cigarettes, which were forbidden to the Germans, but they liked them. This was the fastest way of making friends, he had influential friends in the SS, Wehrmacht and the Luftwaffe, who rescued him from the Gestapo, which was the secret police, because later on he was accused of being on the Jews side. So when it was possible, he bought a little factory in the Southern part of Krakow, near the ghetto. He named it Deutsche Emailwaren Fabrik – German enamelware fabric. Firstly he employed only Polish, but he found out, that if he will employ Jews, he will get a higher income, because the Polish were paid 150 German marks, but for the Jews only 7 marks. In those days he wasn’t really interested in Jews – he took them as cheap manpower. But he treated his employers as normal people, not like the other employees, and a rumor started to spread among the Jews that he is the best employee in the city. The Problem of the Jews caught his attention, when he saw who the SS troops killed 7000 people in the ghetto. He saw it because His property was near the ghetto, and at that time he was riding his horse (his stables were on a hill, so he saw perfectly, what was happening there) after that he had decided that he will help the Jews, even if he would lose his life. When his fabric was celebrating 4 years in 1943, a new SS General came from Berlin – His mane was Amon Goeth. He was known for his cruelty and impassivity. Schindler immediately made friends with him – not because he liked him but to save his employers. Amon Goeth was sent to Krakow for only one reason – to eradicate all the Jews in that region. Schindler found out a way how to get information out from Goeth – he always gave him quality alcohol, because he knew, that Goeth was addicted to it. This way he found out that in January the SS would raid the ghetto. He decided to keep his workers in the factory for 3 days. But after he released them, another problem emerged. The SS soldiers always took his workers away, and they didn’t get to work on time. Schindler knew that there was no way to save them from SS, so he started to build an own camp, where his workers lived with their families. But this was only a temporary solution, because the Red army started to threaten the Polish borders. Goeth ordered to relocate all the Jews into the Plaszow camp, near Krakow. Then Schindler didn’t know what to do: he had 2 choices: the first was that he will flee up with his wife and money, or to get his workers out of the camp. He decided to save his workers. He started to write a list of 700 men and 300 women, which became known as Schindler’s list. But his plan was almost impossible – he wanted to take all the Jews out of Poland, maybe somewhere near the Polish Moravian borders. But his plan almost failed because the men were sent to Gros Rosen, and the Women to Auschwitz. He immediately went after them, and after arguing with the camp officers, everybody was lest to go to his new Factory, Brinnlitz. It was located near his home town. He managed to buy a bigger factory, which was somewhere in the forest. Nobody knows what he was producing here. Some people say that part of weapons, another say that he was buying things on black market, and selling it as his own, but definitely nothing useful for the Nazis. When he heard, that the war was over, he left his factory and went to the American occupation zone, where he gave the list, containing the 1200 names of people he had saved. After the war, he moved to Argentina, but his company went bankrupt. He left his wife there, and moved back to Germany, but there he also failed. After the War, he was awarded by the Jews Righteous of the nations, but he got other awards too. He died on 9th October 1974, and was buried on mount Zion, in Jerusalem.