Schindler's Factory, Krakow

Schindler's factory has been changed from a factory to a museum, dedicated to what the war experience in Poland was like. It reminded me of the Lorraine Hotel and the National Civil Rights Museum--the site of Martin Luther King's assassination was turned into a museum that told the story of the cause he died for. In Schlinder's factory you end up in a room that has been made up to looke like the factory when it was in use, with a desk for Schindler and the list of the Polish Jews he saved.

The thing about Oskar Schindler is that he was much more like the average man than most heroes. He was a member of the Nazi party (the only one to be buried in an honored way in Jerusalem). He came to Krakow because he bought a confiscated factory and got cheap labor for it. He was probably not a terrific businessman. He had failed businesses both before and after the war--his great success was running his war time factory, and it also bankrupted him--just for a different reason. He used the profits from his Krakow factory to bribe Nazi officials to avoid deportation of his factory workers to death camps.

So here is the story. He was appalled by the murder of Jewish workers, some of them his, right in front of him. It was a proverbial turning point in his life. His factory was deemed an essential part of the war effort, and he protected all his workers by stating they had essential skills required for the running of his factory, and they were kept both fed and safe. When the Russians were nearing Warsaw, Schindler arranged for his workers to move to a factory further west so as to keep them alive. He used his personal wealth to protect people who did not have any other tie to him other than that they worked for him. Amazing.