One of The Most Inspiring Stories of Our Lifetime
Before Hitler, Schindler, a German national, was a salesman and a pretty good one. He left his wife, Emilie, in Germany to go to Cracow, Poland in 1939 where he knew that he could use the sales skills to become a mogul. One didn't have to be smart to use slave labor to get rich, one just had to know how to make deals. He could do that.
He came to the city to make money any way he could, and he made lots of it. He had lots of women, and lived large and isolated from the horror that was the Nazis. He wore his Nazi pin where ever he went, but wasn't really interested in the politics, just what it offered him.
This was not a good man. However, in the years between 1939 and 1945 a lot happened and this man became a hero who directly saved the lives of more than 1100 people. He saved his marriage. He became a hero.
The how and why this happened is a gripping drama that is told in at least two books and an Oscar Award winning movie.
But beyond the entertainment and the important historical portrayal of a dark moment in human history, is the fact that even the amoral, can become heroes. I believe he is worth studying so that we can understand how to uncover the best in ourselves, because if this man could do it, anyone can.
Contents at a Glance
- After the War the Roles Reversed
- Schindler's List: The Book that Brought This Story to Us
- Schindler's List: The 1993 Academy Award for Best Picture
After the War the Roles Reversed
Here we see a picture of Oskar Schindler and some of the Jews that he saved.Peacetime was not good to Schindler. One of the most touching parts of the movie was the end when the survivors, accompanied by the actors who played them in the movie, along with Ben Kingsley and Emilie Schindler put stones of honor on Oskar's grave, as is the Jewish custom.
What we did not learn is that after the war these people took care of him.
Of course, things weren't so easy for them either at first. People who cooperated with the Nazis were easy to recognize. While most the the camp inmates were emaciated and ill, the Schindler Jews were comparatively robust. It wasn't easy for them to convince the liberators that they were not collaborators. It was a predicament, but nothing compared to Schindler's as he was a fugitive Nazi.
Eventually things worked out, but Schindler was a failure for the rest of his life. It seems that he was correct about his assessment of himself. He wasn't good at business. He made (and gave away) a fortune because anyone could get rich from the labor of slaves. After the war he tried a few businesses and they all failed.
However, the network of Jews he had saved from horrible deaths found a way to support him and Emilie after the war. He did not get back the fortune he had lost, but he got so much more.
Schindler's List: The Book that Brought This Story to Us
Had it not been for the accidental entering by a writer into a store and a conversation that might not have happened, we wouldn't have this story. I wonder if the events that caused Oskar Schindler to change his course were as random, from the book they seem to be.
Is this luck, or is the universe really taking care of us?
Schindler's List
Amazon Price: $10.80 (as of 12/24/2009)
Schindler's List: The 1993 Academy Award for Best Picture
However, I am presenting to you
1. a trailer to give you a taste for the movie.
2. the Siskel and Ebert review of the movie where they talk about the importance of the presentation of the Holocaust and the importance of this as a movie.
3. a clip of the music which is the spirit of this great story.
Schindler's List: Steven Spielberg's Movie
Schindler's List (Widescreen Edition)
Amazon Price: $17.49 (as of 12/24/2009)
Oskar Schindler Liked the Good Life, But Discovered Something More Imortant
Oskar Schindler: 1908-1974
He was mourned on every continent
The People I Know Who Were Directly Affected by the Holocaust
Living in the New York metro area for many years, I met people who were survivors or children of survivors.I remember a teacher in grad school who had lived in the Warsaw Ghetto and Auschwitz for the entire war. She had the humanity to teach me to respect the angst of young women of means who were graduating from Ivy League schools. I always remember her, thinking that if she can respect others' seemingly petty worries, certainly I could.
My good friend Renee was the daughter of two survivors. Her father was in a camp where his wife was killed, he never quite recovered although he did marry Renee's mother. Her mother was a member of the resistance where she lived all year in the woods finding whatever shelter or sustenance they could, but living free and fighting the Nazis. Her husband and young son were killed in a cave by the Germans. She did better psychologically, probably because she had the opportunity to fight back.
These people were both scarred and noble. They did not let the past take away their lives, they could still enjoy. I admired them all and hope I could have done as well as they did.
Another View of Oskar
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Holocaust (The Oskar Schindler Story)
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In December 1939, as occupied Poland was being torn apart by the savagery of the Holocaust, Oskar Schindler, the unlikeliest of role models, took his first faltering steps from the darkness of Nazism towards the light of heroism. "If you saw a dog go...
Keeping the History Alive
Oskar Schindler:
"Beyond this day, no thinking person could fail to see what would happen. I was now resolved to do everything in my power to defeat the system."
The Lives He Saved
Schindler's Legacy: True Stories of the List Survivors
Amazon Price: (as of 12/24/2009)
Journalist Elinor Brecher interviewed the Schindler survivors. Because of her and this book we have a concise of just what Oscar's heroism has given to the world.
Oskar Schindler's Factory Where He Sabotaged the Nazis and Saved Lives
The New Library
Kindle: Amazon's Original Wireless Reading Device (1st generation)
Amazon Price: (as of 12/24/2009)
You no longer have to worry about which books to take on vacation. With the Kindle, you can take them all.
Any Purchase Here Will Contribute to Heifer International: The Pay It Forward Entrepreneurial Charity
Why Did He Do It?
Why Do You Think That Oskar Schindler Went from Amoral to Hero?
Fetching blurbs now... please stand byI don't have two sides
drifter0658 says:
Schindler walked into the Devil's Den and thought he could steal from evil. What he saw there shocked him.
Posted January 30, 2009
Tracey_M says:
Of course he redeemed himself. How many people are living now because of him, not just those he saved but their children and their children's children. To put your own life at risk for one person makes a hero in my eyes. Schindler did it for hundreds.
Posted November 26, 2008
papawu says:
I simply do not know. One would hope that his humanity finally came to the forefront in the sight of such absolute human suffering.
Posted October 19, 2008
I just want to hear what you think about it
What Were The Most Touching, Heart Rending, or Important Moments in This Story?
I could list them all, but I will start with a few, but I would like this to be a place where you express what this story means to you.
Come Blog with Me
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byMore On Schindler
- Wikipedia
- A story of his life.
- Another Journalist Who Met Schindler
- This man did not believe the stories at the beginning, but found them to be true.
- What Would You Have Done?
- This essay asks us to look at ourselves to see if we have it in us to do what he did.
- The Sad End
- From Hero to Obscurity
Whoever saves one life, saves the entire world.
Oskar Schindlar Declared Righteous by the Jews
Please Leave a Tribute to This Amazing Transformation and the Courageous Survivors
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Reply
- sittonbull sittonbull Mar 28, 2009 @ 6:13 pm
- Your lensography, including this marvelous lens, of men who made a difference in epic human struggles is a masterpiece. History tells us that men & women down through time, like Barrabas on the cross, and Schindler her have experienced epiphanies after leading amoral lives. It appears to me fundamental to God's plan that it's never too late to find amazing grace whether by accident or by design. In my lifetime it seems an almost sad irony, that the true identity of people cannot be defined until they have experienced great crisis and/or great challenge. This lens will also be lensrolled and copied to the plexo of my new lens on Inspiration.
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Reply
- drifter0658 drifter0658 Jan 30, 2009 @ 10:03 pm
- Great lens......truth be told, he changed once and Itzhak Stern guided him back to who he really was....5*
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Reply
- Tracey_M Tracey_M Nov 26, 2008 @ 9:13 am
- I saw this movie because it starred my all time favourite actor, Ralph Fiennes. The movie portrayed the story beautifully. It needed to be told.
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Reply
- Becket Becket Nov 20, 2008 @ 9:51 pm
- "Schindler's List" is without a doubt one of the best movies ever made. It is truly inspired. Mr. Spielberg's talent is unfathomable.
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Reply
- papawu papawu Oct 19, 2008 @ 12:26 am
- Having grown up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, city for that matter, and having been blessed enough to have shared many religious functions with Jewish friends and their families, stories like this really touch me.
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More Books on the Schindler Story
The Road to Rescue: The Untold Story of Schindler's List
Amazon Price: $18.21 (as of 12/24/2009)
Steven Spielberg & Liam Neeson Schindler's List B&W 16x20
Amazon Price: $29.95 (as of 12/24/2009)
Schindler's List: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Amazon Price: $11.99 (as of 12/24/2009)
I Will Plant You a Lilac Tree: A Memoir of a Schindler's List Survivor
Amazon Price: $6.99 (as of 12/24/2009)
Oskar Schindler and His List: The Man, the Book, the Film, the Holocaust and Its Survivors
Amazon Price: (as of 12/24/2009)
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Fetching RSS feed... please stand byAbout Margo Arrowsmith
Lensmaster Margo_Arrowsmith has been a member since June 21 2008, has rated 2,018 lenses, favorited 121, and has created 129 lenses from scratch. Margo Arrowsmith donates their royalties to Squidoo Charity Fund. This member's top-ranked page is "Heifer International: The Pay It Foward Entrepreneurial Charity". See all my lenses
My Bio
For Arrowsmith Printing 9/22/08
I was born into a small business, I believe that small business and entrepreneurs are the backbone of America and what has made us great. They are what made us great and will save us in these unsure times. I have never wanted to have a great job. Well, better a great one, than a boring dead end one, and I have had both. But I have never really wanted a job at all.
Don't get me wrong, I am a hard worker. I have worked a full-time job, a part time job and a private practice all at the same time for a lot of years in my past. It isn't the work, its the working for someone else. Never wanted to do that, and I don't understand those who want to do that.
When I was six months old my parents bought their first small town weekly newspaper in Iowa. This was back in the day, back when small town newspapers were not just advertising sheets. Perhaps there are still some of them that are real, I hope so.
So I came by this perverse nature naturally. My path to self employment has been different than theirs, but it has always been my path, my direction.
Growing up in Iowa, in the fifties, I also grew up politically conservative. By the time I was 30 I was radically left. Today? I am proudly liberal and what that means will be clearer as we progress.
However, I have had conflicts about 'taking advantage of people'. I now know that employing people is not automatically taking advantage of them, but it took a while for me to learn that nothing is intrinsically good or bad. Well, almost nothing.
I have educated myself in business, I have a small business and I have used EFT and other energy clearing methods to help me clarify the old conflicts and move forward.
My mission here is to provide a forum for people who want to work independently through one person businesses or through employing others and for whom the betterment of human kind is an important value. My lenses are about offering good products, teaching people about betting their lives, and using the money they make for their pleasure and the benefit of others.
That is how I see business and if you have a similar vision I invite you to my blog www.creatingbusinessenergy.com
Margo Arrowsmith
Raleigh, North Carolina
Mother and Grandmother
Clinincal Social Worker, Coach and Internet Marketer
Interfaith Contemplative Minister
Student of life, business, the human spirit that motivates us to be our best in all circumstances.
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by Margo_Arrowsmith
For Arrowsmith Printing 9/22/08
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