Schindlers List

Oskar Schindler

Oskar Schindler outwitted Hitler and the Nazis to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other during World War II. This remarkable man surfaced from the chaos of madness, spent millions bribing and paying off the SS and eventually risked his life to rescue 1200 Jews in the shadow of Auschwitz. In those years, millions of Jews died in the Nazi death camps, but Schindler's Jews miraculously survived.

Oskar Schindler was all that stood between them and death at the hands of the Nazis. A man all too human, full of flaws like the rest of us. The unlikeliest of all role models - a Nazi, a womanisor, a war profiteer. An ordinary man who answered the call of conscience. Even in the worst of circumstances Oskar Schindler did extraordinary things, matched by no one. He remained true to his Jews, the workers he referred to as my children. He kept the SS out and everyone alive.

In a 1964 interview, standing in front of his dingy apartment Am Hauptbahn No. 4 in Frankfurt Am Main, West Germany, Oskar Schindler for once commented on what he did:

"The persecution of Jews in occupied Poland meant that we could see horror emerging gradually in many ways. In 1939, they were forced to wear Jewish stars, and people were herded and shut up into ghettos. Then, in the years '41 and '42 there was plenty of public evidence of pure sadism. With people behaving like pigs, I felt the Jews were being destroyed. I had to help them. There was no choice."

When asked, Schindler told that his metamorphosis during the war was sparked by the shocking immensity of the Final Solution. In his own words: "I hated the brutality, the sadism, and the insanity of Nazism. I just couldn't stand by and see people destroyed. I did what I could, what I had to do, what my conscience told me I must do. That's all there is to it. Really, nothing more."

Oskar Schindler  - with his wife Emilie Schindler - spent millions to protect and save the Schindler-Jews, everything he possessed. He died penniless. But he earned the everlasting gratitude of his Jews ...