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"They won't soon forget the name 'Oskar Schindler' around here. 'Oskar Schindler,' they'll say, 'everybody remembers him. He did something extraordinary. He did what no one else did. He came with nothing, a suitcase, and built a bankrupt company into a major manufactory. And left with a steamer trunk, two steamer trunks, of money. All the riches of the world.' " - Oskar Schindler to his wife, Emilie, from the film Schindler's List.
The story of Oskar Schindler is one that very few people forget. It is a story of such emotional magnitude that it is hard to believe it, and even harder to let it fade from your memory. Oskar Schindler is so memorable because he was an amalgam of oxymorons. He was the Nazi who never killed a Jew. He was the successful businessman whose products were useless. He was the entrepreneur who was bankrupt. Behind all of these lies the amazing story of Oskar Schindler. It has been told again and again, with major entries into each of today's principal storytelling devices: literature, television and cinema. The book was written by Thomas Keneally using interviews with many of the Schindlerjuden (Schindler's Jews). The documentary was produced, written and directed by Jon Blair for Thames Television and HBO using similar interviews. And the film was directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay adapted from Keneally's book by Steven Zaillian. All of these were presented objectively, for Oskar himself never told his story. The only sources for these entries were interviews with those who had only limited experience with Oskar. There was not one person who knew the real Oskar; he kept secrets and aspects of his life from everyone he met. So then, who was he? Only by analyzing our three sources can we compose an image of the "real" Oskar Schindler.
Since most of what we know about Oskar is from secondhand information, the best way to begin is to throw out everything but the facts. Oskar was born on April 28, 1908 in Zwittau, Czechoslovakia. He was born into a wealthy family and he was able to indulge in everything he wanted to. He was a Catholic but wasn't devout. He spent most of his younger years as many of that age tend to: looking for a faster vehicle, better alcohol and more women. He happened to have quite a talent in all of these fields. He was a gifted racer (he once finished second to an established racer in an amateur race), he had an amazing ability to hold alcohol and he was seemingly irresistible to the ladies. Oskar used all of these qualities to his advantage whenever he could. Even after he married his wife, Emilie, he still was irresistible to the ladies, and they were often irresistible to him as well.
Before the War, his family lost a good amount of its wealth in the depression and Oskar joined the Nazi party (as did many who shared his situation). Many businesses at the time were struggling, so the popular solution was to join the Party in some form. Oskar was recruited into the German Intelligence Agency. His job was to spy on Poles, whom the SS has just invaded. He moved to the recently segregated Cracow and quickly began accumulating wealth on the black market. It was through these dealings that he came to be in charge of Deutsch Emailwaren Fabrik (DEF or, to the Schindlerjuden, Emalia) an enamelware factory.
For his employees, Oskar hired Jews from the Cracow ghetto. The Jews were not allowed to earn wages under Nazi law, all their wages were paid directly to the Party. Their wages were less than other peoples', so they were the best choice for Schindler. Schindler also hired a Jew to be his accountant, Itzhak Stern. All of his Jewish workers lived in the ghetto and were very close to Lipowa Street, where DEF was. They were marched from the ghetto to the factory with SS supervision. Occasionally the SS would execute an Aktion to remove unruly Jews from the ghetto, and Oskar bribed many members of the SS to ensure that his labor force would not be touched. Oskar had his Jews, and his Jews had a job and a little more security than their neighbors in the ghetto.
Then came Amon Goeth. In early 1943, Haupsturmführer Goeth was brought to Cracow by the SS to turn the ghetto into a labor camp. He was to sort through the ghetto and transport all the capable Jews into the Plaszów labor camp under construction nearby, which he was to be in charge of as well. On March 13, 1943, he ordered the beginning of the liquidation of the ghetto. Everyone in the ghetto was taken from their homes and marched out into Plaszów. All who resisted were killed. That night, Goeth had the SS check every building for hiding Jews. There were many found, and shot. In all, about 10,000 Jews were taken to Plaszów; and more than 2,000 Jews were killed during the liquidation.
None of those killed were Schindlerjuden. Oskar had found out about the planned liquidation beforehand and had all of his Jews stay at Emalia those nights. Oskar himself witnessed the liquidation while on a horseback ride on a ridge overlooking the ghetto. There, one can't even imagine the horrors he saw.
Goeth ruled over Plaszów with a sadistic fist. He shot Jews indiscriminately from his villa in the camp. By the end of his 19-month reign, around 8,000 jews were killed either at Plaszów or with Goeth's approval elsewhere. Oskar, not wanting to lose any workers, requested that a sub-camp of Plaszów be open under Oskar's control at DEF. Goeth agreed and all of the Schindlerjuden were released from Goeth's Plaszów to Oskar.
By the end of the summer of 1944, the Russian armies were advancing on Cracow and the SS ordered all of the Jews in Plaszów and its sub-camps exterminated. Oskar closed his sub-camp and his transplanted DEF to Brinnlitz, an established factory in Zwittau, where he grew up. He asked that all of his Jewish employees accompany him to Zwittau. The Armaments Inspectorate, for whom his factory produced, allowed Oskar to take 1,000 Jews with him. He bribed them until they allowed him to take 1,200.
At Brinnlitz the Schindlerjuden were nurtured. They were living in the Nazi's most lenient labor camp. They were given more food, clothing and free time than any other Jews. They were not worked from before sun up to after sun down. They were allowed to follow the Sabbath. Perhaps above all they were protected from the SS, who Oskar banned from the factory floor.
Keeping Brinnlitz alive was a large task for Oskar. The Germans were losing the war. Brinnlitz was, unlike DEF, a weapons manufactory. He was no longer producing pots and pans; now he produced artillery shells. What made it a burden was the fact that Brinnlitz never produced a usable shell. Oskar spent almost all of his money bribing high-ranking officials so that his "haven" could remain open. He succeeded and Brinnlitz survived until Germany surrendered. It cost him everything he had, but he had kept 1,200 Jews alive and well and out of the crematoriums of Auschwitz II and Gröss-Rosen.
"This will all be over soon, you know." - Oskar Schindler to Itzhak Stern, from the film Schindler's List.
From these facts we can insinuate some things about Oskar. We can insinuate that Oskar did not believe in the Nazi doctrines. The true Nazis believed that all non-Aryans were inferior and should be exterminated. Oskar obviously did not fit this profile. In fact he was almost the opposite, save for the racial superiority. We can then insinuate that, since he remained among the Nazi ranks for their duration that he was an entrepreneur beyond economic reasons. He took advantage of the Nazis and the SS at every chance he had. He played Amon Goeth like a fiddle (even to his death Goeth considered Oskar, who disliked him in private, a true friend). All of his bribes added up to a large sum of money and gifts for the SS. Yet he was willing to pay it all to save his Jews.
We can insinuate that Oskar had great respect for the Jewish religion. Obviously Oskar felt an empathy for the Jews but he also showed respect for the religion itself, most prominently when he ordered Rabbi Jakob Levartov to stop working before sun down and to prepare a ceremony for the Sabbath. Would a man who was only working to save people regardless of their religion order someone to practice his religion? And in the face of death on top of that!
We can also insinuate that Oskar was a humanitarian. This is an obvious statement considering that he saved the lives of 1,200 people, but there is more evidence under the headline. Oskar Schindler never displayed any anger towards his Nazi comrades. These were people whom he watched slaughter millions of innocent people everyday, while he was saving people from them, and yet he never publicly decried any of them. He never publicly denounced some of the Nazi ideals. It is possible, probable maybe, that he let all of those sentiments go in private. But we can't make that assumption.
We knew Oskar was brave, confident, an entrepreneur, a womanizer, an amazing businessman and a showman. Now we can definitively say that he was a humanitarian, a man of great respect for one's beliefs (be they Jewish or Nazi), and one to capitalize on an advantage. Now let's look at what those who knew him have said.
Thomas Keneally interviewed 50 of the Schindlerjuden and their relatives for his novel. He specifically mentions that he was spurred on by Poldek Pfefferberg. He also gives special thanks to Moshe Bejski and Mieczyslaw Pemper for their support. All three of them, especially Pfefferberg, play large roles in the novel (and Pfefferberg plays an even larger role in the film.) This points out the one flaw with Keneally's book: it is an incomplete picture because he relies too heavily on his interviews. You can look at one of two ways: he balances his book too heavily on those he interviewed or he didn't interview enough of the Schindlerjuden. Either way, the book is still accurate in what it tells, even if it doesn't tell everything.
What the book does tell is some unbelievable stories. Keneally occasionally acknowledges that the stories are sometimes embellished and exaggerated, but in those cases they suit our purposes even more. After all, the purpose behind embellishing something is to draw some part of it out more; to more clearly expose something about it. Even if they are embellished, these stories are incredible.
The story of Rabbi Levartov at the Sabbath is just one of these stories. There is the story of Josef Bau's marriage which, although not pertaining directly to Schindler himself, is amazing.
"Why did I keep the car? Amon would've bought this car. 10 people right there. This pin, 2 people, This is gold! 2 people--he could've given me 2 people; at least one. One person. One person who is dead. One person I could've gotten out and I didn't!!" - Oskar Schindler to Itzhak Stern and the other Schindlerjuden, from the film
Schindler's List.