Oskar Schindler (28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974)

As a member of the Nazi Party, Schindler ran an enamel-works
factory in Krakow during the German occupation of Poland,
employing workers from the nearby Jewish ghetto. When the
ghetto was liquidated, he persuaded Nazi officials to allow the
transfer of his workers to the Plaszow labor camp, thus saving
them from deportation to the death camps. In 1944, all Jews at
Plaszow were sent to Auschwitz, but Schindler, at great risk to
himself, bribed officials into allowing him to keep his workers
and set up a factory in a  location in occupied Czechoslovakia.

Schindler died of liver failure on 9 October 1974. He is buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, the only member of the Nazi Party to
be honored in this way.


 

Schindler’s grave in Jerusalem. The Hebrew inscription
reads: "Righteous Among the Nations"; the German
inscription reads: "The Unforgettable Lifesaver of
1200 Persecuted Jews".

Schindler’s memorial in Svitavy, Czech Republic,
his birthplace.

On January 27, 1945, Soviet troops entered Auschwitz, Poland,
freeing the survivors of the network of concentration camps—
and finally revealing to the world the depth of the horrors
perpetrated there.

Auschwitz was really a group of camps, designated I, II, and III
along with 40 smaller “satellite” camps. It was at Auschwitz II,
at Birkenau, established in October 1941, that the SS created a
complex, monstrously orchestrated killing ground: 300 prison
barracks; four “bathhouses” in which prisoners were gassed;
corpse cellars; and cremating ovens.

Thousands of prisoners were also used for medical experiments overseen and performed by the camp doctor, Josef Mengele, the
“Angel of Death.”