Editing Oskar Schindler (section)

==After the war==
[[File:Oskar Schindler Regensburg AltStadt 21 Feb 2015.jpg|thumb|Memorial plaque on the house where Schindler lived in [[Regensburg]]. As seen in 2015 ]]
As a member of the Nazi Party and the ''Abwehr'' intelligence service, Schindler was in danger of being arrested as a war criminal. Bankier, Stern, and several others prepared a statement he could present to the Americans attesting to his role in saving Jewish lives.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|pp=453–454}} 

After the liquidation of the Płaszów camp, the ''Schindlerjuden'' decided to give Schindler a memento. The original investors in the enamel factory canvassed the workers for ideas. Knowing there were several jewelers among their group, a man named Simon Yeret, formerly a prosperous timber merchant, offered a gold bridge from his own mouth. The bridge was removed and its metal melted with a few scavenged silver coins.{{sfn|Yad Vashem|2010}} A jeweller named Jozef Gross cut a section of lead pipe and created a master signet ring out of which the gold version would be cast. Gross shaved two [[cuttlebone]]s flat and squeezed the lead master between them until an impression had been pressed into the mould. This was filled with the gold from Yeret's bridge. Gross then filed and polished the gold ring. He engraved a paraphrase from the Talmud in Hebrew on the ring that said, "Whoever saves one life saves the world entire."{{sfn|Crowe|2004|pp=453–454}}{{efn|The inscription is a compressed version of a [[precept]] in the [[Talmud]]; see [[:wikiquote:Talmud#Saving a life|Talmud § Saving a life at Wikiquote]].}} Despite his mixed feelings about Schindler's character, Gross kept the cuttlebone mold and lead master for the rest of his life. They are currently housed at the [[Melbourne Holocaust Museum]]. The whereabouts of the actual ring have long been unknown, nor is it clear what Schindler did with it after the war.{{sfn|Rawlinson|2016}}

=== Escape to the American lines ===
To escape capture by the Soviets, Schindler and his wife departed westward in their vehicle, a two-seater [[Horch]], initially with several fleeing German soldiers riding on the running boards. A truck containing Schindler's mistress Marta, several Jewish workers, and a load of black market trade goods followed. Soviet troops confiscated the Horch at the city of [[České Budějovice]], which the Soviets had already captured. The Schindlers were unable to recover a diamond Oskar had hidden under the seat.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=467}} They continued by train and on foot until they reached the American lines at [[Lenora (Prachatice District)|Lenora]] and then travelled to [[Passau]], where an American Jewish officer arranged for them to travel to [[Switzerland]] by train. They moved to [[Bavaria]] in Germany in late 1945.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|pp=469–473}}

[[File:Schindlergrave2010.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Schindler's grave in Jerusalem. The Hebrew inscription reads: "[[Righteous Among the Nations]]"; the German inscription reads: "The Unforgettable Lifesaver of 1200 Persecuted Jews". ]]

By the end of the war, Schindler had spent his entire fortune on bribes and black market purchases of supplies for his workers.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=455}} Virtually destitute, he moved briefly to [[Regensburg]] and later [[Munich]] but did not prosper in postwar Germany. He was reduced to receiving assistance from Jewish organisations.{{sfn|Steinhouse|1994}} In 1948 he presented a claim for reimbursement of his wartime expenses to the [[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee]] and received US$15,000.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|pp=482, 487}} He estimated his expenditures at over $1,056,000, including the costs of camp construction, bribes, and black market goods, including food.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=409}}

In 1949 Schindler emigrated to Argentina, where he tried raising chickens and then [[nutria]] (coypu), a small animal raised for its fur. When the business went bankrupt in 1958, he left his wife and returned to Germany, where he had a series of unsuccessful business ventures, including a cement factory.{{sfn|Roberts|1996|pp=86, 88}}{{sfn|Thompson|2002|p=25}} He declared bankruptcy in 1963 and suffered a heart attack the next year, which led to a monthlong hospital stay.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=510}} Remaining in contact with many of the Jews he had met during the war, including Stern and Pfefferberg, Schindler survived on donations sent by ''Schindlerjuden'' from all over the world.{{sfn|Thompson|2002|p=25}}{{sfn|Crowe|2004|pp=510–511}}

For his work during the war, on 8 May 1962 [[Yad Vashem]] invited Schindler to a ceremony in which a [[carob]] tree was planted in his honour on the [[Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations|Avenue of the Righteous]].{{Sfn|Crowe|2004|p=528}} Schindler received awards for his efforts, including the German [[Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany|Order of Merit]] in 1966.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=566}} Schindler died of liver failure on 9 October 1974.{{sfn|Biography|2017}} He is buried in [[Jerusalem]] on [[Mount Zion]], possibly the only member of the Nazi Party to be honoured in this way.{{sfn|Steinhouse|1994}}{{sfn|Thompson|2002|p=25}} On 24 June 1993 he and his wife were named [[Righteous Among the Nations]], an award the [[Israel|State of Israel]] bestows on non-Jews who took an active role in rescuing Jews during the Holocaust.{{sfn|Crowe|2004|p=604}} Schindler, along with [[Karl Plagge]],{{sfn|Good|2005|p=179}} [[Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz]],{{sfn|Saphir|2018}} [[Helmut Kleinicke]],<ref>{{cite web |title=Kleinicke, Helmut |url=https://righteous.yadvashem.org/?searchType=righteous_only&language=en&itemId=12821427&ind=0 |publisher=Yad Vashem |access-date=7 July 2023 |archive-date=4 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230404075315/https://righteous.yadvashem.org/?searchType=righteous_only&language=en&itemId=12821427&ind=0 |url-status=live }}</ref> and [[Hans Walz]]<ref>{{cite web |url=https://righteous.yadvashem.org/?search=Hans%20Walz&searchType=righteous_only&language=en&itemId=4018152&ind=0 |title=Walz, Hans |publisher=Yad Vashem |access-date=7 July 2023 |archive-date=7 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230707220226/https://righteous.yadvashem.org/?search=Hans%20Walz&searchType=righteous_only&language=en&itemId=4018152&ind=0 |url-status=live }}</ref> are among the few Nazi Party members to be given this award.

The writer Herbert Steinhouse, who interviewed Schindler in 1948, wrote: "Schindler's exceptional deeds stemmed from just that elementary sense of decency and humanity that our sophisticated age seldom sincerely believes in. A repentant opportunist saw the light and rebelled against the sadism and vile criminality all around him."{{sfn|Steinhouse|1994}} In a 1983 television documentary, Schindler is quoted as saying: "I felt that the Jews were being destroyed. I had to help them; there was no choice."{{sfn|Roberts|1996|p=91}} In the former Czechoslovakia, his reputation is mixed, as he is negatively remembered for his service in the ''Abwehr'' and for his support of German separatism in the Sudetenland.{{sfn|Tait|2016}}