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Sept. 21, 2005 "I'm a member of the Nazi Party. I'm munitions’ manufacturer. I'm a profiteer of slave labor. I am a criminal. At midnight, you'll be free and I'll be hunted. I shall remain with you until five minutes after midnight. After which time, and I hope you'll forgive me, I have to flee." – Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler at the end of the movie "Schindler's List" This is the true story of one remarkable man who outwitted Hitler and the Nazis to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other during World War II. It is the story of Oscar Schindler who surfaced from the chaos of madness, spent millions bribing and paying off the SS and eventually risked his life to rescue the Schindler-Jews. To more than 1200 Jews Oscar Schindler was all that stood between them and death at the hands of the Nazis. A man full of flaws like the rest of us - the unlikeliest of all role models who started by earning millions as a war profiteer and ended by spending his last pfennig and risking his life to save his Jews. An ordinary man who even in the worst of circumstances did extraordinary things, matched by no one. He remained true to his Jews, the workers he referred to as my children. In the shadow of Auschwitz he kept the SS out and everyone alive. Oscar Schindler spent millions to protect and save his Jews, everything he possessed. He died penniless. But he earned the everlasting gratitude of the Schindler-Jews. Today his name is known as a household word for courage in a world of brutality - a hero who saved hundreds of Jews from Hitler's gas chambers. Schindler died in Hildesheim in Germany October 9, 1974. He wanted to be buried in Jerusalem. As he said: My children are here. Oscar Schindler and his wife Emilie Schindler were inspiring evidence of courage and human decency during the Holocaust. Emilie was not only a strong woman working alongside her husband but a heroine in her own right. She worked indefatigably to save the Schindler-Jews - a story to bear witness to goodness, love and compassion. Today there are more than 7,000 descendants of the Schindler-Jews living in US and Europe, many in Israel. Before the Second World War, the Jewish population of Poland was 3.5 million. Today there are between 3,000 and 4,000 left. "Oskar Schindler-this name has and should have a meaning to all of us in the world. This man who confronted all the odds that were against him, who risked his life for the people he loved and barely knew. A golden heart in a cold cruel world which at the time was too hostile for Jews to live. I wish I got to know him, he should have been treated during his life with much more well deserved respect." – Stephen (one of the Schindler Jews) April 18, 2005 When the Nazis were beaten back on the East Front, Plaszow and its satellite camps were dissolved and closed. Schindler had no illusions as to what that would entail. Desperately he exerted his influence on his contacts in the military and industrial circles in Crakow and Warsaw and finally went to Berlin to save his Jews from a certain death. With his life as the stakes, he employed all his powers of persuasion, he bribed uninhibitedly, fought, and begged. Where no one would have believed it possible, Schindler succeeded. He was granted permission to move the whole of his factory from Plaszow to Brunnlitz in occupied Czechoslovakia and furthermore, unheard of before, take all his workers with him. In this way, the 1,098 workers who had been written on Schindler`s list in connection with the removal avoided sharing the fate of the other 25,000 men, women and children of Plaszow. Who were sent without mercy to extermination in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, only 60 kilometers from Plaszow. Until the liberation of spring, 1945, Oscar Schindler used all means at his disposal to ensure the safety of his Schindler-Jews. He spent every pfennig he had, and even Emilie Schindler`s jewels were sold, to buy food, clothes, and medicine. He set up a secret sanatorium in the factory with medical equipment purchased on the black market. Here Emilie Schindler looked after the sick. Those who did not survive were given a fitting Jewish burial in a hidden graveyard - established and paid for by Schindler. Later accounts have revealed that Schindler spent something like 4 million German marks keeping his Jews out of the death camps - an enormous sum of money for those times. Even though the Schindler had had a large mansion placed at their disposal close to the factory, Oscar Schindler understood the fear which his Jews had of nocturnal visits from the SS. As in Plaszow, Schindler did not spent one single night outside the little office in the factory. The factory continued to produce shells for the German Wehrmacht for 7 months. In all that time not one usable shell was produced! Not one shell passed the military quality tests. Instead, false military travel passes and ration cards were produced, just as Nazi uniforms and weapons, ammunition and hand-grenades were collected. But still, a tireless Schindler succeeded in these months in persuading the Gestapo to send a further 100 Belgian, Dutch and Hungarian Jews to his factory camp "with regard to the continuing war industry production". In May 1945, it was all over. The Russians moved into Brunnlitz. The previous evening, Schindler gathered everyone together in the factory and took a deeply emotional leave of them. He told them they were free, he was a fugitive. "My children, you are saved. Germany has lost the war." He asked that they didn't go into the neighboring houses to rob and plunder. "Prove yourself worthy of the millions of victims among you and refrain from any individual acts of revenge and terror". He announced that three yards of fabric were to be given each prisoner from his warehouse stores as well as a bottle of vodka - which brought a high price on the black market. At five after midnight - certain that his Jews finally were out of danger - Oscar Schindler left the factory. "I must leave now", Schindler said, "Auf Wiedersehen". Oscar Schindler and 1200 Schindler-Jews along with him had survived the horrors of the Holocaust. In 1961, the year the war criminal Adolf Eichmann was brought to trial in Jerusalem, a group of Jews invited Schindler to visit Israel. The visit aroused great interest, coupled with the trial of Eichmann, and great efforts were made to have Schindler honored as "righteous". The honor came the following year on the day of his birthday, when he was invited to plant a tree in the Avenue of the Righteous. ------------ About the author: Kaycee Nilson has completed her first novel, "Night Falls on Chicago." The first two chapters can be viewed at http://www.KayceeNilson.com. Besides writing columns for Useless-Knowledge, Kaycee is currently working on two more novels, "From the Mind of a Vampire", and "I'll Love You Til You Die." If you have enjoyed what you read, or would like to leave Kaycee a message, please visit her message board at http://www.KayceeNilson.com/Board Email: Kaycee@kayceenilson.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com. Please link to this article rather than copying and pasting it onto your site (which would be unauthorized and illegal). |
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