The Real Oskar Schindler

     Oskar Schindler was born on April 28, 1908, in Svitavy, Moravia (Czech Republic) who would later during World War II, rescue more than 1,000 Jews from deportation to Auschwitz. He first worked in his father's farm machinery business in 1928 and married to Emilie Pelzl. In February 1939, five months after the German annexation of the Sudetenland, he joined the Nazi Party. After the German invasion and occupation of Poland Schindler moved to Krakow and took advantage of the "Aryanization" and "Germanization" of Jewish businesses and bought Rekord Ltd., a Jewish-owned enamelware manufacturer, in November 1939. He converted its plant to establish the Deutsche Emalwarenfabrik Oskar Schindler (German Enamelware Factory Oskar Schindler), also known as Emalia.

Map of Krakow with Schindler's factory

      Schindler actually owned two more factories but the Emalia one was the only one that employed Jewish workers. The workers at Emalia were still subject to the brutal conditions of the Plaszow concentration camp, however, Schindler frequently intervened on their behalf. He used bribes for the well-being of the Jewish workers threatened on an individual basis and to ensure and not until late 1944 did the SS deport his Jewish workers. In order to claim the Jewish workers to be essential to the war effort, he added an armaments manufacturing division to Emalia. During the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto in March 1943, Schindler allowed his Jewish workers to stay at the factory overnight too.

      In October 1944, after the SS had moved the Jewish workers to Plaszow, Schindler sought and obtained authorization to relocate his plant to Moravia and reopen it exclusively as an armaments factory. One of his assistants made a version of a list of up to 1,200 Jewish prisoners needed to work in the new factory. These lists came to be known collectively as “Schindler's List.” Schindler met the specifications required by the SS to classify Brünnlitz as a subcamp of Gross-Rosen concentration camp and aided in the survival of around 800 Jewish men whom the SS deported and between 300 and 400 Jewish women.

Source: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/oskar-schindler