Oskar Schindler Research Paper

Oskar Schindler, a unique and unlikely hero during the Holocaust, was able to save the lives of many innocent Jews by risking his own life. Oskar Schindler saved over 1,200 lives over the course of World War II. Through out his life, Oskar had failed multiple times in the business world, but in 1939 he finally found success. Schindler saved the thousands of Jews by getting involved with the German Nazis and risking his life. Oskar Schindler was born on April 28, 1908 in Svitavy, Moravia into a middle class Catholic family. Oskar’s father, Hans Schindler, owned a farm-machinery company and his mother, Louisa Schindler, was a homemaker. He had a younger sister named Elfriede and was very close to her (“Schindler Biography”). Growing up in Zvitavy, Oskar had many friends outside of school, but in school he was not that well of a student. While growing up his closest friends were two Jewish boys. After finishing grammar school, Oskar moved on to study engineering in numerous trade schools in Brno. He was expected to take over the family business
from his father. However, after he married Emilie Pelzl in 1928 some tension was brought up between him and his father (“Schindler Biography”). Oskar eventually left the company and held many small jobs that he did not stay with long or they failed and he was shut down. These jobs included a driving school he started in Sumperk, he sold government property in Brno and he was a sales manager for a Moravian electric company. Later he began to serve in the Czechoslovak army and earned the lance corporal rank in the reserves. After serving in the army, Schindler worked with the Auslands Amt / Abwehr (Office of the Military Foreign Intelligence) in 1936 for the German forces (“Oskar Schindler”). In February of 1939, Nazi Germany annexed Sudetenland and Oskar officially joined the Nazi Party. Oskar joined the Nazis because he felt that it would be a good business choice, not because he agreed with their motives. In September 1939, Schindler moved to Krakow, Poland and began to work there. While in Krakow, Schindler bought a broken down enamelware factory in October 1939. This new factory was called Deutsche Emalwarenfabrik Oskar Schindler also called Emalia. He also met a Polish- Jewish accountant named Itzhak Stern that helped him find workers for the factory. The two business partners looked towards Krakow’s Jewish community for cheap and reliable labor (“Schindler Biography”). Emalia at one point had 1,700 workers in it and 1,000 of these workers were Jewish people that lived in the ghetto of Krakow. Schindler’s factory began to develop and he started to make a fortune off of his new company. During the spring of 1940, Hitler and the Nazis began to order the entire “non-work essential” Jews out of Krakow. As this happened many Jews were desperate to find work and Oskar was able to help many of them. Schindler helped by fighting and intervening with the work of the SS to get them to stay in Krakow. Oskar claimed that without his essential workers he could not continue helping the war effort. He allowed all of his Jewish workers to stay at the factory overnight during the first liquidation of the city. During the last liquidation of Krakow, SS Amon Goeth was put in charge by the Nazis to move all the Jews to a labor camp in Plaszow or to send them to death camps. Amon Goeth then announced that all companies in Krakow were going to be moved inside a labor camp in Plaszow. After hearing this Schindler bribed Goeth to let him have a sub-camp at Emalia so he didn’t have to move all of his workers (“Oskar Schindler”). Goeth approved. As the war went on Schindler began to turn his focus from his money and businesses to saving the Jews from Nazi control. His most effective way of saving Jews so far was the factory. He also saved many other Jews by claiming they worked in his factory and were essential. He told them that without the workers it would hinder with production (“Schindler’s List”). The Gestapo had arrested Schindler on multiple accounts. They arrested him on charges of irregularities and favoring Jews. He was soon released every time because of the lack of evidence. After being arrested several times, he did not hesitate to save more Jews’ lives. In 1943, Schindler was invited by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee to meet in Budapest. On the high-risk trip to Budapest, he discussed with the committee on ways to save the Jews living in Poland (“Schindler’s List”). In early 1944, the labor camp at Plaszow was now being converted to a death camp. Instead of having his workers taken away, Schindler again bribed the SS to let him move his factory to Czechoslovakia to help supply Hitler’s army the Third Reich (“Schindler Biography”). SS Amon Goeth agreed to this and instructed Schindler to make a list of the Jews that he wanted to take with him. Schindler then was forced to decide whom he wanted to save (“Schindler Biography”). He came up with over 1,200 names of workers in Emalia and in other factories. The moving of the factory to Brunnlitz, Czechoslovakia was made in the fall of 1944. In the next 9 months, the new factory only made one wagonload of live ammunition for the Third Reich (“Oskar Schindler”). On May 8, 1945, the war ended and Schindler fled west to avoid being captured by Russians. Later that week a Russian troop came to the factory to liberate the workers. Life went on for Oskar Schindler after the war was over.
It was much like his life before the war with the failed businesses, overspending, bankruptcy and numerous love affairs. In 1949, Schindler had moved the Argentina to buy a farm. Soon after this he went bankrupt and separated with his wife. Schindler had abandoned her in Argentina when he moved back to Germany with money from a Jewish organization in 1958. Again in 1961 Schindler went bankrupt after his cement business in Frankfurt, Germany failed. He began living off of funds from the Schindlerjuden, Schindler Jews, and a small retirement fund the German government gave him in 1968. On October 9, 1974, Oskar Schindler died of liver and heart problems in Hildesheim, Germany. His body was moved and buried in Israel. At his formal funeral at the Catholic cemetery on Mount Zion in Jerusalem over 500 Schindlerjuden attended (“Schindler
Biography”). Oskar Schindler’s life consisted of bankruptcy, failed businesses, and number of love affairs, but what made him still remembered today was his bravery and determination to save the lives of thousands of innocent Jews from the control of the Nazis in World War II. He saved over 1,200 lives through out World War II. Oskar Schindler saved the thousands of Jews by risking his life and many others’ lives as well.