Oskar Schindler Factory Poland

Legendary

See how Oskar Schindler, despite being a member of the Nazi party, saved the lives of 1,200 Jews.

Photo by James Antrobus

Oskar Schindler was not a good man for most of his life. He was a spy, a gambler, a heavy drinker, and a member of the Nazi Party.

Then, in the middle of the worst thing that ever happened in Europe, he did something remarkable. He saved about 1,200 people.

Schindler was born in 1908 in what is now the Czech Republic. In 1938, Czechoslovak police arrested him for espionage, spying for Germany, and sentenced him to death.

Germany took over the region months later and freed him. He joined the Nazi Party in 1939 and followed the German army into Poland looking for ways to make money.

In Kraków, he took over a factory that made enamel pots and pans. It had belonged to Jewish owners, and the Nazis had seized it.

Schindler renamed it Emalia. At first he hired Jewish workers simply because they were cheap.

That changed as he watched what was happening around him. Jewish families in Kraków were forced into a walled ghetto, then sent to a labor camp called Płaszów run by a cruel commandant.

Schindler began fighting to keep his workers at the factory. He bribed officials, threw parties for Nazi officers, and argued that his employees were essential to the war.

In 1944, the Nazis began emptying the camps. Schindler moved his whole operation to a new factory in his home region, and the names of the workers he took with him became known as Schindler's list.

The factory made ammunition, and Schindler made sure almost none of it worked. He spent his fortune keeping the workers fed until the war ended in May 1945.

When it was over, the survivors gave him a gold ring made from their own dental gold. He died in 1974 and is buried in Jerusalem.

Visit the museum in the factory's old office building, which tells the story of Kraków under German occupation. Look for the wall of enamel pots and the glass room lined with the names of the people Schindler saved. Walk to the nearby Ghetto Heroes Square, where 70 empty metal chairs stand as a memorial.