Remembering Oskar Schindler
KRAKOW TOURS – On the day that the world is remembering and reminiscing about John Lennon (today would have been his 70th birthday), another internationally famous figure should be remembered also.
On this day (9th October) in 1974 Oskar Schindler died.
Oskar Schindler rose to the highest level of humanity, walked through the bloody mud of the Holocaust without soiling his soul, his compassion, his respect for human life - and gave his Jews a second chance at life. He miraculously managed to do it and pulled it off by using the very same talents that made him a war profiteer – his flair for presentation, bribery, and grand gestures.
In those years, millions of Jews died in the Nazi death camps like Auschwitz, but Schindler’s Jews miraculously survived.
To more than 1200 Jews Oscar Schindler was all that stood between them and death at the hands of the Nazis. A man full of flaws like the rest of us – the unlikeliest of all role models who started by earning millions as a war profiteer and ended by spending his last pfennig and risking his life to save his Jews. An ordinary man who even in the worst of circumstances did extraordinary things, matched by no one. He remained true to his Jews, the workers he referred to as my children. In the shadow of Auschwitz he kept the SS out and everyone alive.
Oskar Schindler and his wife Emilie Schindler were inspiring evidence of courage and human decency during the Holocaust. Emilie was not only a strong woman working alongside her husband but a heroine in her own right. She worked indefatigably to save the Schindler-Jews – a story to bear witness to goodness, love and compassion.
Today there are more than 7,000 descendants of the Schindler-Jews living in US and Europe, 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.
Oskar Schindler spent millions to protect and save his Jews, everything he possessed. He died penniless. But he earned the everlasting gratitude of the Schindler-Jews. Today his name is known as a household word for courage in a world of brutality – a hero who saved hundreds of Jews from Hitler’s gas chambers.
Schindler died in Hildesheim in Germany October 9, 1974. He wanted to be buried in Jerusalem. As he said: My children are here ..
Poland … Cracovia … Krakow … (via Shashamane1′s Blog)
Some more great photo’s, this time taken by Richard Brooks, some of which whilst on tours with KRAKOW TOURS.
Like this:
When Hollywood Becomes History
Some fantastic photographs here of the area in and around the Liban Quarry, site of one of the working quarries used by the nazi’s for the prisoners from the nearby work camp of Płaszów. And used during the filming of Shindlers List as a mock up of the Płaszów camp.
Krakow Tours’ Schindlers Steps walk takes you through this area and includes many other interesting sites from Schindlers time in the area seen and locations used in Spielberg’s film.
Schindler’s List For Sale $2.2 Million
KRAKOW TOURS - Oskar 
Schindler, the Czech businessman made famous by Stephen Spielberg for saving 1,200 Jews from the concentration camps, made 7 copies of his life-saving list.
The whereabouts of two of them are unknown, the Israeli Holocaust Museum has two, another is in a public archive in Koblenz, Germany, another is in the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., and the final extant list belongs to the Stern family, descendants of Schindler’s accountant and right hand man, Itzhak Stern.
After two years of negotiations with historic document dealer Gary Zimet of MomentsInTime.com, the Stern family has put that last known privately-held copy on the market. The price is a cool $2.2 million.
“It’s printed on onion-skin paper,” Zimet said. “It’s remarkable given the age and the paper. It’s in excellent shape.”
“This is the only remaining copy left in private hands,” Zimet said. “The rest are in museums.”
While Zimet expects that many museums will be interested in obtaining the list, he notes that the high price will require a patron to step forward. “These days, museums are all broke,” Zimet said.
Several copies of the list were made between 1944 and 1945. Every time Schindler submitted a new (and longer) list of employees to be spared the camps, he kept a carbon copy. According to the Stern family, this particular list of 801 names dated 18/04/1945 was the second to last one Schindler made.
Here’s hoping someone with cash could use the tax write-off and donate it to a public institution.
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