Why did Oskar Schindler do it ?

In his international bestseller Schindler's Ark, Thomas Keneally tells us, that one of the most common sentiments of the Schindler-Jews is still:"I don't know why he did it ..." Keneally drops a hint in his description of Oskar Schindler's childhood, a strong Catholic household and deeply religious parents. The nearest neighbors were a Jewish Rabbi family, and the two sons were Oskar's closest friends for years.

Steven Spielberg, who turned the novel into a seven Academy Award-winning film, Schindler's List, pointed out in an interview in Der Spiegel, that Oskar Schindler simply was 'ein guter Mensch', whose sheer humanity forced him to take extremely great personal risks to save his Schindler-Jews.

A decade before Schindler's List made it to the top of Hollywood's A-list Jon Blair, producer and director, made Schindler, an 80-minute documentary for Britain's Thames Television about Oskar Schindler's life. In 1983 it won the British Academy Award for best documentary. But the film left few clues as to why Oskar Schindler devoted his fortunes and future to saving the lives of his Jews. Blair later told:"Oskar, this big man with a big heart and big connections, loved to be loved and needed. But I always felt it was a weakness in my film that I couldn't explain Schindler's motivation, and Spielberg told me the same about his - it seems impossible to crack that enigma .."

Irving Glovin, Oskar Schindler's attorney and friend, met Oskar in 1963 and bought the rights to the story and film in 1980. He later recalled Oskar Schindler not only with affection, but with great admiration:"He drank, yes, he drank. He liked women. He bribed. But he bribed for a good purpose. All of these things worked. If he were not this kind of person he probably wouldn't have succeeded. Whatever it took to save a life he did. He worked the system extraordinarily well. He was a true human being in the best sense of the word .. His actions in those circumstances were absolutely extraordinary and I know of no one who has matched them."

Oskar Schindler's wife, Emilie Schindler, recalls Oskar this way in A Memoir Where Light And Shadow Meet:"In spite of his flaws, Oskar had a big heart and was always ready to help whoever was in need. He was affable, kind, extremely generous and charitable, but at the same time, not mature at all .."

In a 1964 interview, standing in front of his dingy apartment Am Hauptbahn No. 4 in Frankfurt Am Main, West Germany, Oskar Schindler for once commented on what he did:

"The persecution of Jews in occupied Poland meant that we could see horror emerging gradually in many ways. In 1939, they were forced to wear Jewish stars, and people were herded and shut up into ghettos. Then, in the years '41 and '42 there was plenty of public evidence of pure sadism. With people behaving like pigs, I felt the Jews were being destroyed. I had to help them. There was no choice."

 - Louis Bülow

www.auschwitz.dk   www.deathcamps.info   www.shoah.dk   www.annefrank.dk  www.oskarschindler.com

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