Oskar Schindler's Accomplishments

Oskar Schindler completed the impossible task of saving over a thousand Jews from relegation during the Holocaust. Although Schindler worked efficiently and effectively, his climb to success was not easily achieved. Schindler underwent numerous strenuous tasks, and solved difficult issues to achieve the greatness that he did. Schindler risked his life multiple times to protect those less fortunate. Schindler betrayed his own morals in order to protect the Jewish people. At the beginning of World War II, Schindler purchased an enamelware factory, thus allowing him to harbor Jewish people there. “In October 1939, he took over a run-down enamelware factory that had previously belonged to a Jew. He cleverly maneuvered his steps- acting upon
the shrewd commercial advice of a Polish-Jewish accountant, [Itzhak] Stern - and began to build himself a fortune.
The small concern in Zablocie outside Krakow, which started producing kitchenware for the German army, began to grow by leaps and bounds” (qtd. in www,yadvashem.org). By purchasing this enamelware factory, the Jewish people employed were no longer manipulated by the Nazi party. Schindler gave the Jewish people something that was exceedingly valuable compared to anything in the world; hope. As Schindler continued to employ additional Jewish people, he also discovered possible ways to increase his profit. One way Schindler managed to save money and increase his profit was because of Itzhak Stern. “Itzhak Stern...was a man of Jewish faith who worked for German industrialist Oskar Schindler. He was the accountant for Schindler's enamelware company (Deutsche Emaillewarenfabrik) in Kraków
and greatly helped run the business” (qtd. in www.Wikipedia.org). Itzhak Stern greatly affected Oskar Schindler and his business because he helped keep financial records, and suggested ideas to keep the business flourishing. As time advanced, the Nazis began to control larger parts of Europe. By 1943, the Nazi Party was in full pursuit to take over the continent. Since the Nazis were in control of Europe, they forced Jews into concentration camps and other punishments worse. Oskar Schindler was deprived of his employees when the Nazi regime came into power.
Schindler’s workers, Jewish people, were all being sent to concentration camps. One concentration camp in general, Plaszow, was the main loss of Schindlerjuden. “In March 1943, the Krakow ghetto was being liquidated, and all the remaining Jews were being moved to the forced-labor camp of Plaszow, outside Krakow. Schindler prevailed upon SS-Haupsturmführer Amon Goeth, the brutal camp commandant and a personal drinking companion, to allow him to set up a special sub-camp for his own Jewish workers at the factory site in Zablocie. There he was better able to keep the Jews under relatively tolerable conditions, augmenting their below-subsistence diet with food bought on the black market with his own money. The factory compound was declared out of bounds for the SS guards who kept watch over the sub-camp” (qtd. in www.yadvashem.com). Schindler’s solution to the loss of his Jews was to build his own sub-camp, which was a replacement of his enamelware factory. By Schindler building his own sub-camp, the SS could not affect the Jewish people in a negative process. The Jewish people were safe from intolerance, until an urgent evacuation caused all Jews to be sent to extermination camps. “In late 1944, Plaszow and all its sub-camps had to be evacuated in face of the Russian advance. Most of the camp inmates—more than 20,000 men, women, and children—were sent to extermination camps”
(www.yadvashem.org). Once the Jews were forced to evacuate from Schindler’s sub-camp, they were vulnerable to the wrath that the Nazis possess. The Jews were now in the hands of the Nazis, and the Nazis used their power to their advantage. They began killing Jews in mass quantities, and as they did, they destroyed a culture and a race rapidly. Once Schindler received word about the intolerable acts of the Nazis, he immediately took action. Schindler decided to create another business, and continued to save more jewish lives.