Whoever Saves One Life

Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist and member of the Nazi Party, arrived in occupied Kraków in 1939 seeking fortune amidst the chaos of war. He saw an opportunity for profit in the newly occupied territory. He took over a run-down enamelware factory that had previously belonged to a Jewish owner. His initial goal was profiting from cheap Jewish labor and his Nazi connections.

Using his charm and bribing high-ranking German officers with contraband goods, Schindler secured numerous army contracts and expanded his business rapidly. He cleverly maneuvered through the complex wartime economy, aided by the advice of a Polish-Jewish accountant named Itzhak Stern. By the end of 1942, his business had grown into a massive enamel and ammunitions production plant, employing almost 800 people, of whom 370 were Jews from the Kraków ghetto.

As Schindler witnessed the escalating brutality of the Holocaust, his conscience awakened. He stopped using his wealth, charm, and connections to build his empire, and started using them to protect his Jewish workers from deportation to death camps.