The Other Schindlers by Agnes Grunwald-Spier

Author:Agnes Grunwald-Spier [Agnes Grunwald-Spier]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752462431
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2011-09-27T04:00:00+00:00

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RESCUERS WITH OTHER MOTIVES

Oskar Schindler (1908–74), who became known across the world through Stephen Spielberg’s 1994 film, did not live to see his surname become a generic term for non-Jewish rescuers in the Holocaust. Other rescuers are referred to as Schindlers of various types: Varian Fry was described as the ‘Artists’ Schindler’;1 Henk Huffener was called ‘Surrey’s own Oscar Schindler’;2 Chiune Sugihara was described as ‘Japan’s Schindler’;3 Dr Ho was called the ‘Oskar Schindler of China’;4 and the British Ambassador to Lisbon in 1940, Sir Ronald Hugh Campbell, has been called the ‘British Schindler’.5

However, Oskar’s complex personality and motives exemplify many of the aspects of all rescuers and therefore a study of his role as a rescuer is necessary before other rescuers’ motives are discussed.

At the end of the war, Oskar Schindler wrote about his efforts to move his factory, together with his 1,000 Jewish employees, from Krakow to Brinlitz in the Sudetenland. Hoffman, the owner of the factory, objected and as a good Nazi tried every possible way of stopping the transfer. ‘He went to the Gestapo, to the Landrat, to the district governor, urging that Schindler not be allowed to fill the area with his Jews, who are liable to bring smallpox, attract the attention of enemy bombers etc.’ But Schindler succeeded in getting permission from SS Headquarters:

It is impossible for a person from the outside to imagine how hard I had to work before I succeeded in carrying out my decision to transfer the Jews, before I saw the 1,000 people lodged in their new place. The general confusion which reigned at that period, the bureaucracy, the envy and the malevolence of various people brought me at times to the brink of despair. I was sustained, however, by a burning desire to save the Jews, some of whom had become close, loyal friends of mine during the preceding 5–6 years, from the crematoriums of Auschwitz or some other place, after I had succeeded in protecting them for so many years, and at the cost of so much personal effort, from the clutches of the S.S.6

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