Editing Oskar Schindler (section)

==World War II==
===Emalia===
Schindler first arrived in [[Kraków]] (Krakau) in October 1939 on ''Abwehr'' business and took an apartment the following month. Emilie maintained the apartment in Ostrava and visited Oskar in Kraków at least once a week.{{sfn|Schindler|Rosenberg|1997|p=43}}{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=87}} In November 1939, he contacted interior decorator Mila Pfefferberg to decorate his new apartment. Her son, [[Poldek Pfefferberg|Leopold "Poldek" Pfefferberg]], soon became one of his contacts for [[black market]] trading. They eventually became lifelong friends.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|pp=88–91}}

The same month, Schindler was introduced to [[Itzhak Stern]], an accountant for Schindler's fellow ''Abwehr'' agent Josef "Sepp" Aue, who had taken over Stern's formerly-Jewish-owned place of employment as a ''treuhänder'' (trustee).{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=100}} Property belonging to Polish Jews, including their possessions, places of business, and homes, were seized by the Germans beginning immediately after the invasion, and Jewish citizens were stripped of their civil rights.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=147}} Schindler showed Stern the balance sheet of a company he was thinking of acquiring, an [[Oskar Schindler's Enamel Factory|enamelware factory]] called Rekord Ltd{{efn|The full name of the company was Pierwsza Małopolska Fabryka Naczyń Emaliowanych i Wyrobów Blaszanych "Rekord".{{sfn|Brzoskwinia|2008}} }} owned by a consortium of Jewish businessmen that had filed for bankruptcy earlier that year.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|pp=107–108}} Stern advised him that rather than running the company as a trusteeship under the auspices of the ''[[Haupttreuhandstelle Ost]]'' (Main Trustee Office for the East), he should buy or lease the business, as that would give him more freedom from the Nazis' dictates, including freedom to hire more Jews.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=101}}

With the financial backing of several Jewish investors, including one of the owners, [[Abraham Bankier]], Schindler signed an informal lease agreement on the factory on 13 November 1939 and formalised the arrangement on 15 January 1940.{{efn|He bought the business outright on 26 June 1942.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=109}} }} He renamed it ''Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik'' (German Enamelware Factory) or DEF, and it soon became known by the nickname "Emalia".{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=111}}{{sfn|Roberts|1996|p=39}} He initially acquired a staff of seven Jewish workers (including Bankier, who helped him manage the company{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=102}}) and 250 non-Jewish Poles.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=114}} At its peak in 1944, the business employed around 1,750 workers, a thousand of whom were Jews.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=136}} Schindler also helped run Schlomo Wiener Ltd, a wholesale outfit that sold his enamelware, and was leaseholder of Prokosziner Glashütte, a glass factory.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|pp=120, 136}}

Schindler's ties with the ''Abwehr'' and his connections in the ''[[Wehrmacht]]'' and its Armaments Inspectorate enabled him to obtain contracts to produce enamel cookware for the military.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=86}} These connections also later helped him protect his Jewish workers from deportation and death.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=79}} As time went on, Schindler had to give Nazi officials ever larger bribes and gifts of luxury items obtainable only on the black market to keep his workers safe.{{sfn|Schindler|Rosenberg|1997|p=61}} Bankier, a key black market connection, obtained goods for bribes as well as extra materials for use in the factory.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=104}} Schindler enjoyed a lavish lifestyle and pursued extramarital relationships with his secretary, Viktoria Klonowska, and Eva Kisch Scheuer, a merchant specialising in enamelware from DEF.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|pp=203–204}} Emilie Schindler visited for a few months in 1940 and moved to Kraków to live with Oskar in 1941.{{sfn|Roberts|1996|pp=40–41}}{{sfn|Schindler|Rosenberg|1997|p=49}}

[[File:Schindler’s factory, Kraków, 2011.jpg|thumb|Schindler's factory in [[Kraków]], 2011]]

Initially, Schindler was mostly interested in the business's money-making potential and hired Jews because they were cheaper than Poles—the wages were set by the occupying Nazi regime.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=138}} Later he began shielding his workers without regard for cost.{{sfn|Steinhouse|1994}} The status of his factory as a business essential to the war effort became a decisive factor in enabling him to protect his Jewish workers. Whenever ''[[Schindlerjuden]]'' (Schindler Jews) were threatened with deportation, he claimed exemptions for them. He claimed wives, children, and even people with disabilities were necessary mechanics and metalworkers.{{sfn|Steinhouse|1994}} On one occasion, the ''[[Gestapo]]'' came to Schindler demanding that he hand over a family that possessed forged identity papers. "Three hours after they walked in," Schindler said, "two drunk Gestapo men reeled out of my office without their prisoners and without the incriminating documents they had demanded."{{sfn|Silver|1992|p=149}}

On 1 August 1940 Governor-General [[Hans Frank]] issued a decree requiring all Kraków Jews to leave the city within two weeks. Only those who had jobs directly related to the German war effort would be allowed to stay. Of the 60,000 to 80,000 Jews then living in the city, only 15,000 remained by March 1941. These Jews were then forced to leave their traditional neighbourhood of [[Kazimierz]] and relocate to the walled [[Kraków Ghetto]], established in the industrial [[Podgórze]] district.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=161}}{{sfn|Roberts|1996|p=41}} Schindler's workers travelled on foot to and from the ghetto each day to their jobs at the factory.{{sfn|Roberts|1996|p=49}} Enlargements to the facility in the four years Schindler was in charge included the addition of an outpatient clinic, co-op, kitchen, and dining room for the workers, in addition to expansion of the factory and its related office space.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=175}}

===Płaszów===
In the autumn of 1941 the Nazis began transporting Jews out of the ghetto. Most of them were sent to the [[Bełżec extermination camp]] and murdered.{{sfn|Roberts|1996|p=56}} On 13 March 1943 the ghetto was liquidated, and those still fit for work were sent to the new concentration camp at Płaszów.{{sfn|Longerich|2010|p=376}} Several thousand not deemed fit for work were sent to extermination camps and murdered; hundreds more were murdered on the streets by the Nazis as they cleared out the ghetto. Aware of the plans because of his ''Wehrmacht'' contacts, Schindler had his workers stay at the factory overnight to protect them from harm.{{sfn|Roberts|1996|pp=60–61}} He witnessed the ghetto's liquidation and was appalled. From that point, says ''Schindlerjude'' Sol Urbach, Schindler "changed his mind about the Nazis. He decided to get out and to save as many Jews as he could."{{sfn|Roberts|1996|p=62}}

The [[Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp|Płaszów concentration camp]] opened in March 1943 on the former site of two Jewish cemeteries on Jerozilimska Street, about {{convert|2.5|km}} from the DEF factory.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=112; map, plate 3}} In charge of the camp was [[SS]]-''[[Hauptsturmführer]]'' [[Amon Göth]], a sadist who shot inmates at random.{{sfn|Roberts|1996|p=62}} Płaszów's inmates lived in constant fear for their lives.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=195}} Emilie Schindler called Göth "the most despicable man I have ever met."{{sfn|Schindler|Rosenberg|1997|p=59}}

[[File:Chujowa Gorka.JPG|thumb|[[Hujowa Górka]] ("Prick Hill"), the execution place in [[Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp]] (2007) ]]

Göth's plan was that all the factories, including Schindler's, should be moved inside the camp gates.{{sfn|Thompson|2002|p=20}} But with a combination of diplomacy, flattery, and bribery, Schindler not only prevented his factory from being moved, but convinced Göth to allow him to build (at Schindler's own expense) a subcamp at Emalia to house his workers and 450 Jews from other nearby factories. There they were safe from the threat of random execution, well fed and housed, and permitted to undertake religious observances.{{sfn|Roberts|1996|pp=63–65}}{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=139}}

Schindler was arrested twice on suspicion of black market activities and once for breaking the [[Nuremberg Laws]] by kissing a Jewish girl, an action forbidden by the Race and Resettlement Act. The first arrest, in late 1941, led to him being kept overnight. His secretary arranged for his release through Schindler's influential contacts in the Nazi Party. His second arrest, on 29 April 1942, was the result of his kissing a Jewish girl on the cheek at his birthday party at the factory the previous day. He remained in jail five days before his influential Nazi contacts could obtain his release.{{sfn|Roberts|1996|pp=53–54}} In October 1944 he was arrested again, accused of black marketeering and bribing Göth and others to improve the conditions of the Jewish workers. He was held for nearly a week and released.{{sfn|Roberts|1996|p=75}} Göth had been arrested on 13 September 1944 for corruption and other abuses of power, and Schindler's arrest was part of the ongoing investigation into Göth's activities.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=331}} Göth was never convicted on those charges.{{sfn|Roberts|1996|p=95}}{{sfn|Rzepliñski|2004|p=2}}

In 1943 Schindler was contacted by Zionist leaders in [[Budapest]] via members of the Jewish resistance movement. He travelled to Budapest several times to report in person on Nazi mistreatment of the Jews. He brought back funding provided by the [[Jewish Agency for Palestine]] and turned it over to the Jewish underground.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=151}}{{sfn|Thompson|2002|p=19}}

===Brünnlitz===
[[File:Schindlers factory Brnenec CZ 2004b.JPG|thumb|Schindler's factory at the former site of [[Brünnlitz labor camp]] in 2004]]
As the [[Red Army]] of the [[Soviet Union]] drew nearer in July 1944, the SS began closing down the easternmost concentration camps and evacuating the remaining prisoners westward to [[Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz]] and [[Gross-Rosen concentration camp]]. Göth's personal secretary, [[Mietek Pemper]], alerted Schindler to the Nazis' plans to close all factories not directly involved in the war effort, including Schindler's. Pemper suggested to Schindler that production be switched from cookware to anti-tank grenades in an effort to save the Jewish workers' lives. Using bribery and his powers of persuasion, Schindler convinced Göth and the officials in Berlin to allow him to move his factory and his workers to [[Brněnec|Brünnlitz]] ([[czech language|Czech]]: ''Brněnec''), in the Sudetenland, thus sparing them from certain death in the [[gas chamber]]s. Using names provided by [[Jewish Ghetto Police]] officer Marcel Goldberg, Pemper compiled and typed the list of 1,200 Jews—1,000 of Schindler's workers and 200 inmates from [[Julius Madritsch]]'s textiles factory—who were sent to Brünnlitz in October 1944.{{sfn|Mietek Pemper obituary}}{{sfn|Thompson|2002|pp=21–23}}{{sfn|Roberts|1996|pp=72–73}}{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=316}}

On 15 October 1944 a train carrying 700 men on Schindler's list was initially sent to the concentration camp at Gross-Rosen, where the men spent about a week before being rerouted to the factory in Brünnlitz.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|pp=383–387}} Three hundred female ''Schindlerjuden'' were similarly sent to Auschwitz, where they were in imminent danger of being sent to the gas chambers. Schindler's usual connections and bribes failed to win their release. Finally, after he sent his secretary, Hilde Albrecht, with bribes of black market goods, food and diamonds, the women were sent to Brünnlitz after several harrowing weeks in Auschwitz.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|pp=391, 401}}

In addition to workers, Schindler moved 250 wagonloads of machinery and raw materials to the new factory.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=326}} Few if any useful artillery shells were produced at the plant. When officials from the Armaments Ministry questioned the factory's low output, Schindler bought finished goods on the black market and resold them as his own.{{sfn|Thompson|2002|p=23}} The rations provided by the SS were insufficient to meet the workers' needs, so Schindler spent most of his time in Kraków obtaining food, armaments, and other materials. His wife Emilie remained in Brünnlitz, surreptitiously obtaining additional rations and caring for the workers' health and other basic needs.{{sfn|Schindler|Rosenberg|1997|pp=85–89}}{{sfn|Roberts|1996|pp=78–79}}

Schindler also arranged for the transfer of as many as 3,000 Jewish women out of Auschwitz to small textiles plants in the Sudetenland in an effort to increase their chances of surviving the war.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=333}}{{sfn|Thompson|2002|p=24}} In January 1945, a trainload of 250 Jews who had been rejected as workers at a German mine in [[Goleszów|Goleschau]] in occupied Poland arrived at Brünnlitz. The boxcars were frozen shut when they arrived, and Emilie waited while an engineer from the factory opened them with a soldering iron. Twelve people were dead in the cars, and the remainder were too ill and feeble to work. Emilie took the survivors into the factory and cared for them in a makeshift hospital until the end of the war.{{sfn|Schindler|Rosenberg|1997|pp=89–91}}{{sfn|Thompson|2002|p=24}} Schindler continued to bribe SS officials to prevent the slaughter of his workers as the Red Army approached.{{sfn|Roberts|1996|p=78}} On 7 May 1945 he and his workers gathered on the factory floor to listen to British Prime Minister [[Winston Churchill]] announce over the radio that [[Surrender of Nazi Germany|Germany had surrendered]] and that [[End of World War II in Europe|the war in Europe was over]].{{sfn|Roberts|1996|p=83}}