Today
Oscar Schindler's name is known to millions as a household word for
courage - a flawed hero who
saved more than 1200 Jews from the Nazi death camps.
No one will ever know exactly what made this complex man do what no
German had the courage to do. A large part of the fascination of Oscar Schindler is that not even those who admire him most can figure out his
motives.
But he rose to the highest level of humanity and gave his Schindler-Jews a second chance at life. He earned the everlasting gratitude of his
Jews. No matter why, no matter that he was an
alcoholic and a shameless womanisor of the worst sort - what matters to
the Schindler-Jews is that he surfaced from the chaos of madness and risked
everything for them.
To more than 1200 Jews Schindler was all that stood between them and
death at the hands of the Nazis. But he remained true to his Jews, the
workers he always referred to as my children. In the shadow of Auschwitz
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, 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."
Today there are 7,000 descendants of Schindler's Jews living in US and
Europe, and 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.
Here you find Schindler Jews sharing memories of their unlikely savior -
stories to bear witness to goodness, love and compassion. To serve as
eulogy to the millions with a yellow star who lived and died during the
dark years of the Nazi genocide.
Generations will remember Oscar Schindler for what he did ..
- Louis Bülow
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