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Oskar Schindler Facts

Oskar Schindler Facts
Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist who is most well-known for saving the lives of at least 1,200 Jews during WWII by giving them work in his factories. Oskar Schindler was born on April 28th, 1908, in Zwittau, Moravia, Austria-Hungary, to Johann Hans Schinder and Franziska Schindler. Following high school he attended technical school and then worked in a variety of trades. Oskar joined a pro-Nazi party and began working as a spy. He spent 18 months in the Czech army, and then went on to work for a bank in Prague for seven years. In 1938 he was arrested for spying and sentenced to death but was released when Germany occupied Sudeteland. Oskar Schindler obtained the rights to an enamelware factory in Krakow, and as atrocities against the Jews became apparent he began hiring them to protect them.
Interesting Oskar Schindler Facts:
Originally Oskar Schindler hired Jewish employees in his enamelware factory because they were considered cheap labor. As time went on he began to hire even unskilled Jewish labor to protect them from murder and torture in concentration camps run by the Nazis.
Oskar Schindler had to bribe many Nazi officials in order to secure his Jewish employees' safety.
Oskar Schindler paid millions of dollars to Nazi and German officials to save the lives of his Jewish employees. He eventually went bankrupt.
It is estimated that Oskar Schindler saved the lives of approximately 1,200 Jews during World War II.
Oskar Schindler had originally been a supporter of the discrimination against Jews by the Nazi party, for economic reasons, but as time went on and he realized the truth about what the Nazis were doing he felt he had to try to save as many as he could.
Oskar Schindler was arrested three times. One time he was arrested for kissing a Jewish girl. This was a violation of the Nuremberg Laws which the Nazis had imposed.
Oskar Schindler was also arrested for black market activities and for embezzlement.
Oskar Schindler created several lists (seven in total) that included the names of over 1,000 Jews. The people on these lists were saved by Oskar because he said he needed them to work in his enamelware factory. The factory produced goods considered vital to the Nazi war effort.
The first two lists were the basis for the Hollywood movie Schindler's List. These first two lists have been referred to as 'The Lists of Life'.
Steven Spielberg believed that the story of Schindler's List was too important to garner him financial reward and that it would be 'blood money' so he did not take any salary. The profit was used to found the Shoah Foundation, which collected audio visual interviews and personal accounts by survivors of the Holocaust, in remembrance and honor of them.
When the Holocaust ended, some of the Jewish workers at the enamelware factory gave Oskar Schindler a gold ring made of the dental bridge of the mouth of a prisoner.
In his later years, after declaring bankruptcy, he survived on donations from some of the Jewish people he had saved.
Oskar Schindler died on October 9th, 1974. He is buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion.


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