Oscar Schindler

In the history of humanity, there were figures who came to be called heroes for their outstanding actions, revealing courage and decency, while other people stood still. What moved such persons to risk their fortunes, their positions, and sometimes their lives for the sake of well-being of others? Which character qualities did they have to possess to overcome self-interest and act like no one else did? Courage, selflessness, humaneness, generosity, love, altruism, or maybe combination of those? Many people would assign the above attributes to the character of Oscar Schindler, and they would be right; however, they would miss the main feature, without which all the rest would be impossible – the obedience to the call of conscience.

Oscar Schindler is often called an unlikely hero for his deeds during the Word War II when he saved lives of 1,200 Jewish workers. German industrialist, he saw the opportunities to make money out of war and opened a military factory in Zablocie, outside Krakow. Dealing on the black market, using his connections with the local Gestapo bigwigs and exploiting cheap labor from the Krakow ghetto, Schindler was obtaining fortunes in the beginning of the war. However, when the brutality of Holocaust escalated and thousands of innocent people where killed under the plan of the extermination of Jews, a transformation happened inside Oscar Schindler, and he became a person who spent all his money and risked his life to protect and rescue Jews.

While millions of people were murdered in the Nazi death camps, Schindler’s factory remained a relatively safe haven for Jews. He requested that the workers who worked on the factory were moved from labor camp into barracks nearby, motivating that this would save time in getting to the job; thus, he obtained ability to harbor his Jews. Schindler protected the workers by falsifying factory records: the old were registered as being 20 years younger, children as adults, and professions were changed for...