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Oskar SchindlerOskar Schindler (April 28, 1908–October 9, 1974) was a German businessman, who is famous for his efforts to save his Jewish workers from the Holocaust. He saved up to 1,200 Jews by having them work in his munitions factory in what is now the Czech Republic. Schindler was born in Svitavy (Zwittau), Bohemia (then part of Austria-Hungary, now Czech Republic), into a wealthy business family. The family suffered in the Great Depression of the 1930s and Schindler joined the Nazi party. He was a dilettante and an opportunistic businessman. Following the German invasion of Poland he was one of many Germans who sought a profit in the new territory. Schindler cheaply acquired a factory in Krakow, which he named Deutsche Emaillewaren-Fabrik, producing enamelware. He also obtained around 1300 Jewish slave labourers to work the plant. Some say that he was, at least initially, motivated by money—hiding wealthy Jewish investors, for instance—but later he began shielding his workers more actively. He would, for instance, claim that unskilled workers were in fact essential to the working of the factory, and that any harm to them would result in him raising complaints and demanding compensation from the government. The key horror he witnessed was a 1942 raid on a Jewish ghetto in Krakow. The soldiers were transferring them to the concentration camp at Plaszow, but savagely killed the many Jews who tried to hide in their homes. He was a brilliantly diplomatic individual, and after the raid was increasingly prepared to use all his skills to save his Schindlerjuden (Schindler's Jews). He arranged with Amon Gth, the commander of Plaszow, for 900 Jews to be transferred to an adjacent factory compound where they would be relatively safer from the depredations of the German guards. Schindler was arrested twice on suspicions of conspiracy, but both times managed to evade being jailed. Schindler would typically offer bribes to government officials to avoid investigation. When the advancing Red Army threatened the camps they were destroyed, with their inmates mostly executed. Schindler managed to move 1200 "workers" to a factory at Brnnlitz (Brněnec) in Sudetenland in October 1944. When a shipment of his workforce was misrouted to Auschwitz, he managed to have them returned to him. Brnnlitz was liberated in May 1945. At the end of the war Schindler emigrated to Argentina. He went bankrupt and returned to Germany in 1958 to a series of unsuccessful business ventures. Oscar Schindler died in Frankfurt on the 9th of October, 1974, at the age of 66.. He is honored at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to the Holocaust as one of the "Righteous Among the Nations" and was buried in the Christian (Catholic) Cemetery, Mount of Zion in Jerusalem. Schindler's story was the basis for the 1993 movie Schindler's List. See also Books Crowe, David M. Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities, and the True Story Behind The List. Philadelphia: Westview Press, 2004. ISBN 081333375X Keneally, Thomas. Schindler's Ark. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982. ISBN 0-3403-3501-7. Republished as Schindler's List in 1993, ISBN 0-6718-8031-4. External links Schindler, Oskar Schindler, Oskar Schindler, Oskar Schindler, Oskar Schindler, Oskar
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