Aftermath
| Oscar Schindler’s life after the war was a long series of failures. He tried without success to be a film producer and was deprived of his nationality immediately after the war. Threats from former Nazis meant that he felt insecure in post-war Germany, and he applied for an entry permit to the United States. This was refused as he had been a member of the Nazi party. He fled to Buenos Aires in Argentina with Emilie, his mistress and a dozen Schindler Jews. The Schindlers settled down in 1949 as farmers, raising chickens and nutrias. They were supported financially by a Jewish organization Joint and thankful Jews, who never forgot them. But Oscar Schindler met with no success, and in 1957 he became bankrupt and traveled back alone to Germany, where he remained estranged from his wife for 17 years before he died in poverty in 1974, at the age of 66. Oscar Schindler never saw Emilie again … She stayed in Argentina, where she scraped by on a small pension from Israel and a $650 a month pension from Germany. Her only relative, a niece, lived in Bavaria, Germany. Jewish organizations have honored her for her efforts during the war. In May, 1994, Emilie Schindler received The Righteous Amongst the Nations Award – along with Miep Gies, who hid Anne Frank’s family in the Netherlands and preserved her diary after the family was taken away by the Nazis.   Almost 2,000 people attended the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Yom Hashoah commemoration honoring Emilie Schindler. The tiny woman in the navy blue pantsuit was greeted with smiles and tears as she made her way, supported by two rabbis, toward the menorah-shaped monument at the Museum of Tolerance, where she lit the memorial flame to remember the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust.‘Let me touch you,’ said one woman as she reached out to embrace Emilie Schindler. In 1995, Argentina decorated her with the Order of May, the highest honor given to foreigners who are not heads of state. In 1998 The Argentine government decided to give her a pension of $1,000 a month until her financial situation improved. Last November, Emilie Schindler, was named an Illustrious Citizen by Argentina. |