Oskar Schindler

Oskar Schindler was born on April 28 1908 and died on October 9 1974. Schindler was a German businessman, who joined the National Socialist Party and the Abwehr. Despite him being a fascist he is credited with saving the lives of 1200 people during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware, later ammunitions factories. He is the subject of the 1982 novel, Schindler’s Ark, and the 1993 film, Schindler’s List, which reflected his life as an opportunist, initially motivated by profit, who came to show dedication in order to save the lives of people from the concentration camps. Schindler grew up in Zwittau, Moravia and worked in several trades until he joined the Abwehr, the intelligence service of the National Socialist Party, in 1936. He joined the National Socialist Party in 1939. He collected information on railways and troop movements for the German government. In 1939 Schindler obtained an enamelware factory in Krakow, Poland, which employed around 1750 workers, of whom a thousand were Jews, at the factories’ peak in 1944. His Abwehr connections helped Schindler to protect his workers from deportation and death in the fascist concentration camps. Initially, Schindler was interested in the money-making potential of the business but later he began shielding his workers without regard of the personal cost and danger to him. As time went on, Schindler became more determined to act humanely and against the policy of the German Government. He had to give fascist officials even larger bribes and gifts of luxury items obtainable only on the black market in order to continue to