THE HOLOCAUST
v The Holocaust also known as the Shoah was the mass murder or genocide of approximately six million Jews during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi Germany, led by Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party, throughout German -occupied territory. Of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe before the Holocaust, approximately two-thirds were killed Over one million Jewish children were killed in the Holocaust, as were approximately two million Jewish women and three million Jewish men. A network of over 40, 000 facilities in Germany and German-occupied territory were used to concentrate, hold, and kill Jews and other victims v Some scholars argue that the mass murder of the Romani and people with disabilities should be included in the definition, and some use the common noun "holocaust" to describe other Nazi mass murders, including those of Soviet prisoners of war, Polish and Soviet civilians, and homosexuals. Recent estimates based on figures obtained since the fall of the Soviet Union indicates some ten to eleven million civilians and prisoners of war were intentionally murdered by the Nazi regime. v The persecution and genocide were carried out in stages. Various laws to remove the Jews from civil society, most prominently the Nuremberg Laws, were enacted in Germany years before the outbreak of World War II. Concentration camps were established in which inmates were subjected to slave labor until they died of exhaustion or disease. Where Germany conquered new territory in eastern Europe, specialized units called Einsatzgruppen murdered Jews and political opponents in mass shootings. The occupiers required Jews and Romani to be confined in overcrowded ghettos before being transported by freight train to extermination camps where, if they survived the journey, most were systematically killed in gas chambers. Every arm of Germany's bureaucracy was involved in the logistics that led to the genocides, turning the Third Reich into what one Holocaust
OSKAR SCHINDLER
v Schindler was born on 28 April 1908 into a Sudeten German family in Zwittau, Moravia, Austria-Hungar His parents, Hans Schindler and Franziska Luser, were divorced when he was 27. Schindler was always ver to his younger sister, Elfriede. Schindler was brought up within the Roman Catholic Church. Although he n formally renounced his religion, Schindler was never more than an indifferent Catholic. After school he wor commercial salesman. On 6 March 1928, Schindler married Emilie Pelzl (1907– 2001), daughter of a wealthy Sudeten German farmer from Maletein. A pious Catholic, Emilie had received most of her educatio nearby monastery. During the Great Depression, Schindler changed jobs several times. He also tried startin businesses, but always went bankrupt. He joined the separatist Sudeten German Party in 1935. Though offi citizen of Czechoslovakia, Schindler also became a spy for the Abwehr, then commanded by Admiral Wilhe Canaris. He was convicted of espionage and imprisoned by the Czechoslovakian government in July 1938, b the Munich Agreement, he was released as a political prisoner. In 1939 Schindler joined the Nazi Party. One contends that he also continued to work for Canaris and the Abwehr, paving the way for the Wehrmacht's in Poland on 1 September 1939.
DEF v As an opportunistic businessman, Schindler was one of many who sought to profit from the German invasion of Poland in 1939. He gained ownership from a bankruptcy court of an idle enamelware factory in Kraków, named Pierwsza Małopolska Fabryka Naczyń Emaliowanych i Wyrobów Blaszanych "Rekord", which he renamed Deutsche Emaillewaren-Fabrik or DEF (location). With the help of his German-speaking Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern, Schindler obtained around 1, 000 Jewish forced labourers to work there.
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v. Schindler soon adapted his lifestyle to his income. He became a well-respected guest at Nazi SS elite parties, having easy chats with high-ranking SS officers, often for his benefit. [ Initially Schindler may have been motivated by money, as Jewish labour cost less, but later he began shielding his workers without regard for cost. He would, for instance, claim that certain unskilled workers were essential to the factory.
SCHINDLER'S FACTORY AT BRNĚNEC
v In Brünnlitz, Schindler gained another former Jewish factory, which was scheduled to produce hand grenades and parts for V 2 rockets. It is unclear how much armament was actually produced there; Schindler and some of the workers claimed in the immediate post-war years that there had been no production that would have been useful to the German war effort, and even that some or all of the output had been sabotaged.
SCHINDLER'S LIFE AFTER THE WAR Schindler and his wife fled to Austria's U. S. zone, escaping prosecution by dressing in prison clothes and carrying a letter testifying to their heroic actions. By the end of the war, Schindler had spent his entire fortune on bribes and black-market purchases of supplies for his workers. Virtually destitute, he moved briefly to Regensburg and later Munich, but did not prosper in postwar Germany. In fact, he was reduced to receiving assistance from Jewish organizations. Eventually, Schindler emigrated to Argentina in 1948, where he went bankrupt. He left his wife Emilie in 1957 and returned to Germany in 1958, where he had a series of unsuccessful business ventures. Schindler settled down in a small apartment at Am Hauptbahnhof Nr. 4 in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany and tried again – with help from a Jewish organization – to establish a cement factory. This, too, went bankrupt in 1961. His business partners cancelled their partnership. In 1968 he began receiving a small pension from the West German government.
v In 1971, Schindler moved to live with friends at Goettingstrasse Nr. 30 in Hildesheim. Due to a heart complaint he was taken to the Saint Bernward Hospital in Hildesheim on 12 September 1974, where he died on 9 October 1974, at the age of 66. At the time of his death, he was surrounded by friends and family. [ penniless; [ the costs for his stay in the hospital were paid from social welfare of the city of Hildesheim.
COMMEMORATIVE PLAQUE IN HILDESHEIM, GOETTINGSTRASSE 30 (GERMANY)
v Schindler wanted to be buried in Jerusalem, as he said, "My children are here". After a Requiem Mass, Schindler was buried at the Catholic Franciscans' cemetery[ on Mount Zion, the only member of the Nazi Party to be honoured in this way. A sign at the entrance to the cemetery directs visitors "To Oskar Schindler's Grave". v Schindler's grave is located on the mountainside below Zion Gate and the Old City walls. Stones placed on top of the grave are a sign of gratitude from Jewish visitors, according to Jewish tradition, although Schindler himself was not Jewish. On his grave, the Hebrew inscription reads: "Righteous among the Nations", an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis. The German inscription reads: "The Unforgettable Lifesaver of 1200 Persecuted Jews"
SCHINDLER'S GRAVE
SCHINDLER'S LIST v Schindler's story, retold by Holocaust survivor Poldek Pfefferberg, was the basis for Thomas Keneally's book Schindler's Ark (the novel was published in the United States as Schindler's List), which was adapted into the 1993 movie Schindler's List by Steven Spielberg. In the film, he is played by Liam Neeson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal. The film won seven Oscars, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. The prominence of Spielberg's film introduced Schindler into popular culture. As the film is the sole source of most people's knowledge of Schindler, he is generally perceived much as Spielberg's film depicts him: as a man who was instinctively driven by profit-driven amorality, but who at some point made a silent but conscious decision that preserving the lives of his Jewish employees was imperative, even if requiring massive payments to induce Nazis to turn a blind eye. v Other film treatments have included a 1983 British television documentary produced by Thames Television, narrated by Sir Dirk Bogarde entitled, Schindler: The Documentary (released in the US in 1994 as Schindler: The Real Story), [ and a 1998 A&E Biography special, Oskar Schindler: The Man Behind the List.
CHINDLER'S SUITCASE In late 1999 a suitcase belonging to Schindler was discovered, containing over 7, 000 photographs and documents, including the list of Schindler's Jewish workers. The document, on his enamelware factory's letterhead, had been provided to the SS stating that the named workers were "essential" employees. Friends of Schindler found the suitcase in the attic of a house in Hildesheim, where he had been staying at the time of his death. The friends took the suitcase to Stuttgart, where its discovery was reported by a newspaper, the Stuttgarter Zeitung. The contents of the suitcase, including the list of the names of those he had saved and the text of his farewell speech before leaving his Jewish workers in 1945, are now at the Holocaust museum of Yad Vashem in Israel.
LIST OF SCHINDLERJUDEN v Main article: List of Schindlerjuden v In early April 2009, a second list was discovered at the State Library of New South Wales, Australia by workers combing through boxes of materials collected by author Thomas Keneally. The 13 -page document, yellow and fragile, was filed between research notes and original newspaper clippings. This list, given to Keneally in 1980 by Leopold Pfefferberg, who was listed as worker number 173, differs slightly from the other list, but is nonetheless considered to be genuine and authentic. It is believed that several lists were made during the war as the protected population changed. This particular list, dated 18 April 1945, was given to Keneally by Pfefferberg when he was persuading Keneally to write Schindler's story. In the last months of the war, German Nazi camps stepped up their extermination efforts. This list is believed to have saved the lives of 801 people from death in the gas chambers. It was this list, taken with the surrounding events of the time, that inspired Keneally to write his novel.
NOWADAYS OSKAR SCHINDLER'S DESK AT EMALIA FACTORY
EMILIE SCHINDLER
v When she was 20, the charming Oskar Schindler drove up to the farm on his motorbike. v She later recalled how her father warned her to be careful - Oskar was known as a heart-breaker - but it was love at first sight, and Emilie accepted his proposal. They married on March 6 1928 in the Czech town of Zwittau, and spent their first years together living with Oskar's parents.
v. Emilie played the role of obedient and pretty wife, . She got on well with the local SS commandant, Amoth Goeth, to dinner, and also fed starving Jews. She also became adept at begging the miller for grain, buying fruit and vegetables on the black market and deceiving the wives of the Nazi.
v. Towards the end of the war that Emilie helped save around 120 near-starving and frozen Jews from an Auschwitz-bound train. "The people were far too weak to work, " she later recalled. "But I began to care for the tired ones, and to recover the dead. " Her biographer Erika Rosenberg says that Emilie took the same risks as her husband in her fight to save Jews.
EMILY AND OSCAR v. Emilie felt both admiration and contempt for Oscar, whom she had refused to divorce. She never stopped wearing her wedding ring and said: "If I could choose again, I would choose Oskar. "
v. Jewish organizations have honored her for her efforts during the war. In May, 1994, Emilie Schindler received The Righteous Amongst the Nations Award. v. After the war Oscar fled to Buenos Aires in Argentina with Emilie, his mistress and a dozen Schindler Jews. The Schindlers were supported financially by the Jewish organization Joint and thankful Jews, who never forgot them.
v. In 1993, Spielberg invited her to the premiere of Schindler's List in Washington, where the Clintons received her, after which she went on to Israel. The film director gave her a cheque for $50, 000 dollars.
v. In July, 2001, during a visit to Berlin, Germany, a frail Emilie gave documents related to her husband to a museum. Confined to a wheelchair, she told reporters that it was her 'greatest and last wish' to spend her final years in Germany.
ITZHAK STERN
v Itzhak Stern (January 25, 1901 – 1969) was a Jewish accountant to German industrialist Oskar Schindler. He worked alongside Schindler as the accountant for his enamelware company (Deutsche Emaillewarenfabrik) in Kraków and greatly helped in running the company. He is credited with typing the list of names known as Schindler's list, a list of Jews who survived the. Holocaust because of Oskar Schindler's intervention.
v Even though he was Jewish and Schindler was not, Schindler gave his gratitude to Stern. In their first meeting, Stern informed Schindler that he could use Jewish slave labour to staff his factory at a lower price than Polish laborers. Schindler, recognizing the advantage, took Stern up on his suggestion. Stern was said to be able to bring out the strong moral side of Schindler. Stern, like Schindler, was an opportunist, and he was a main contributor to the rescue of the Schindlerjuden. Stern discovered a way to channel his essentially forced labor for Schindler into a way to help his fellow Jews. As Schindler left Stern to run the factory, he immediately began to give factory jobs to Jews who otherwise would be deemed “nonessential” and would most likely be killed. He forged documents to make teachers and intellectuals appear to be experienced machinists and factory workers. Stern’s motivation to help his people was abundantly clear. He would often advise Schindler about things, mainly the company. He was portrayed in the motion picture Schindler's List by Ben Kingsley. v At the end of the film Schindler's List, Stern's widow appears in a procession of Schindlerjuden survivors and the actors who portrayed them, placing stones on Schindler's grave as a sign of respect. Stern's brother Natan was also one of the Schindlerjuden. v While the relationship between Stern and Schindler was initially purely business, by the end, a definite friendship had arisen.
ITZHAK STERN AND OSKAR S C H I N D L E R P A R I S 1 9 4 9