Oskar Schindler Facts
Oskar Schindler Facts
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Interesting Oskar Schindler Facts: |
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Originally Oskar Schindler hired Jewish employees in his enamelware factory because they were considered cheap labor. As time went on he began to hire even unskilled Jewish labor to protect them from murder and torture in concentration camps run by the Nazis. |
Oskar Schindler had to bribe many Nazi officials in order to secure his Jewish employees' safety. |
Oskar Schindler paid millions of dollars to Nazi and German officials to save the lives of his Jewish employees. He eventually went bankrupt. |
It is estimated that Oskar Schindler saved the lives of approximately 1,200 Jews during World War II. |
Oskar Schindler had originally been a supporter of the discrimination against Jews by the Nazi party, for economic reasons, but as time went on and he realized the truth about what the Nazis were doing he felt he had to try to save as many as he could. |
Oskar Schindler was arrested three times. One time he was arrested for kissing a Jewish girl. This was a violation of the Nuremberg Laws which the Nazis had imposed. |
Oskar Schindler was also arrested for black market activities and for embezzlement. |
Oskar Schindler created several lists (seven in total) that included the names of over 1,000 Jews. The people on these lists were saved by Oskar because he said he needed them to work in his enamelware factory. The factory produced goods considered vital to the Nazi war effort. |
The first two lists were the basis for the Hollywood movie Schindler's List. These first two lists have been referred to as 'The Lists of Life'. |
Steven Spielberg believed that the story of Schindler's List was too important to garner him financial reward and that it would be 'blood money' so he did not take any salary. The profit was used to found the Shoah Foundation, which collected audio visual interviews and personal accounts by survivors of the Holocaust, in remembrance and honor of them. |
When the Holocaust ended, some of the Jewish workers at the enamelware factory gave Oskar Schindler a gold ring made of the dental bridge of the mouth of a prisoner. |
In his later years, after declaring bankruptcy, he survived on donations from some of the Jewish people he had saved. |
Oskar Schindler died on October 9th, 1974. He is buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion. |
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