However, his growing revulsion and horror at the senseless brutality of the Nazi persecution of the helpless Jewish population wrought a curious transformation in the unprincipled opportunist. Schindler never developed any ideologically motivated resistance against the Nazi regime. The only thing that set him apart from other war-profiteers, was his humane treatment of his workers, especially the Jews.

Schindler seemed to be no different from other Germans who had come to Poland as part of the occupation administration and their associates. Of these, 370 were Jews from the Krakow ghetto, which the Germans had established after they entered the city.Ī hedonist and gambler by nature, Schindler soon adopted a profligate lifestyle, carousing into the small hours of the night, hobnobbing with high ranking SS-officers, and philandering with beautiful Polish women. By the end of 1942, it had expanded into a mammoth enamel and ammunitions production plant, occupying some 45,000 square meters and employing almost 800 men and women. After only three months it already had a task-force of some 250 Polish workers, among them seven Jews. The small concern in Zablocie outside Krakow, which started producing kitchenware for the German army, began to grow by leaps and bounds. He cleverly maneuvered his steps- acting upon the shrewd commercial advice of a Polish-Jewish accountant, Isaak Stern - and began to build himself a fortune. In October 1939, he took over a run-down enamelware factory that had previously belonged to a Jew. Naturally cunning and none too scrupulous, Schindler appeared at first to thrive in these surroundings. The ancient city, home to some 60,000 Jews and seat of the German occupation administration, the Generalgouvernement, proved highly attractive to German entrepreneurs, hoping to capitalize on the misfortunes of the subjugated country and make a fortune.

Shortly after the outbreak of war in September 1939, thirty-one-year-old Schindler showed up in occupied Krakow. When the Sudetenland was incorporated into Nazi Germany in 1938, Schindler became a formal member of the Nazi party. Like most of the German-speaking youths of the Sudetenland, he subscribed to Konrad Henlein’s Sudeten German Party, which strongly supported the Nazi Germany and actively strove for the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and their annexation to Germany. Some of Schindler’s schoolmates and childhood neighbors were Jews, but with none of them did he develop an intimate or lasting friendship. The young Schindler, who attended German grammar school and studied engineering, was expected to follow in the footsteps of his father and take charge of the family farm-machinery plant. His middle-class Catholic family belonged to the German-speaking community in the Sudetenland. Oskar Schindler was born on Apat Zwittau/Moravia (today in the Czech Republic).

Schindler&#39;s list film review

Schindler's list film review