Schindler, Oskar (1908-1974), was a German businessman who saved more than 1,200 Jews from almost certain death. Schindler made a fortune on military contracts during World War II (1939-1945) and spent nearly all of it to save Jews from the Holocaust, the Nazi campaign to exterminate them.
Schindler was born on April 28, 1908, in Zwittau, Austria-Hungary (now Svitavy, Czech Republic). In the 1930’s, he became sales manager of an electrical engineering firm in Brno, in what was then Czechoslovakia. During business trips to Poland in 1938 and 1939, Schindler spied for the Germans. After Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Schindler moved to Kraków, Poland. He took over an enamelware factory there and staffed it with Jewish labor. By 1941, he was making huge profits supplying the German army with pots and pans. As persecution of Poland’s Jews intensified, Schindler protected his workers, making sure they were treated well.
In 1943, the Nazis moved Schindler’s workers to a concentration camp at Plszów, near Kraków. The camp was run by Captain Amon Goeth of the SS, the elite Nazi Party guard. To protect his workers from the hunger and violence at Plszów, Schindler built a branch camp at his factory in Zablocie. Most of his workers lived there. When the Russian army approached in 1944, the SS planned to close Plszów and the branch camp and send the inmates to a death camp. Schindler persuaded the Nazis to let him open a new factory at Brünnlitz (now Brnênec, Czech Republic). He made a list of more than 1,100 Jews whom he wanted to work at the factory. The list became famous as “Schindler’s list.” Schindler brought about 100 more Jews into the camp in the following months.
After the war, Schindler lived in Argentina until 1958. He then returned to Germany. The government of Israel honored him for saving the lives of many Jews. Schindler died on Oct. 9, 1974.
