Book Description
Spy, businessman, bon vivant, Nazi Party member, Righteous Gentile. This was Oskar Schindler, the controversial man who saved eleven hundred Jews during the Holocaust but struggled afterwards to rebuild his life and gain international recognition for his wartime deeds. David Crowe examines every phase of Schindler's life in this landmark biography, presenting a savior of mythic proportions who was also an opportunist and spy who helped Nazi Germany conquer Poland.
Schindler is best known for saving over a thousand Jews by putting them on the famed "Schindler's List" and then transferring them to his factory in today's Czech Republic. In reality, Schindler played only a minor role in the creation of the list through no fault of his own. Plagued by local efforts to stop the movement of Jewish workers from his factory in Krak--w to his new one in BrŸnnlitz, and his arrest by the SS who were investigating corruption charges against the infamous Amon Gšth, Schindler had little say or control over his famous "List." The tale of how the "List" was really prepared is one of the most intriguing parts of the Schindler story that Crowe tells here for the first time.
Forced into exile after the war, success continually eluded Schindler and he died in very poor health in 1974. He remained a controversial figure, even in death, particularly after Emilie Schindler, his wife of forty-six years, began to criticize her husband after the appearance of Steven Spielberg's film in 1993.
In Oskar Schindler, Crowe steps beyond the mythology that has grown up around the story of Oskar Schindler and looks at the life and work of this man whom one prominent Schindler Jew described as "an extraordinary man in extraordinary times."
Customer Reviews:
hard going but still interesting .......2007-10-03
This book is an incredibly detailed biography of Oskar Schindler. Because it is so detailed, sometimes it is not easy to read. On the other hand, Crowe certainly presents a far more complete picture of Schindler than does Thomas Kenneally's novel.
Crowe's discussion of Schindler's prewar career is especially interesting. The novel Schindler's List seemed (at least to me) to imply that Schindler was a successful businessman before World War II.
But Crowe suggests that Schindler was essentially a drunken ne'er-do-well until about 1935, when Schindler began to get a steady income by spying for the German Abwehr (military intelligence). Schindler helped recruit German agents in order to aid Germany's conquest of Czechoslovakia, and was so heavily involved with Abwehr that the Czech government imprisoned him for spying in 1938 and investigated him for war crimes after World War II. When war broke out, Schindler moved east with the German army, believing that there was easy money to be made.
Paradoxically, Schindler's involvement with Abwehr made his wartime heroics possible- not just by placing him in Eastern Europe, but also because his Abwehr connections helped him avoid being harassed by the Gestapo. In addition, the Abwehr bureaucracy was generally hostile to the SS (which had its own spies and was thus a bureaucratic rival), so perhaps Schindler's Abwehr associations helped to turn him against Nazism.
This book also tries to answer the question: why did Schindler work so hard to protect his Jewish workers? Crowe concludes that by the end of the war, Schindler was probably motivated primarily by moral considerations. But at the beginning of the war, Schindler had economic motives for protecting Jews as well: because Jews were essentially slaves, they were far cheaper to employ than Christian Poles. While Schindler paid Poles up to $10 per hour, he could rent Jews for less than $2 a day from the SS. Schindler's involvement with Jews was a gradual process:as late as 1942, his workforce was overwhelmingly Christian, and he had only a few Jewish employees. But even in the war's early days, one of Schindler's Jewish employees, Abraham Bankier, was indispensable because of his skills in making black market profits for Schindler. But an employer solely interested in money would have abandoned his Jewish employees once the SS began to insist on liquidating them.
Great research BUT..........2005-05-10
What horrible writing. Never (well almost never) have I read a biography with such a facinating subject, with such in-depth research, more boringly presented.
The writing is terrible. The subject, a man of many layers living in arguably the most morally testing time of the 20th century, just lays there on the page, fact after fact, and never comes alive. Getting through this book was some chore, and that's from someone who really WANTED to read this book. I have to agree with the professional reviewer who used the word, "maddening" to describe the writing here. Really, the author's editor should be taken off the job, but the author is certainly no great shakes as a writer and deserves his lumps also. Not recommended, except to those who really want to plow through a pile of chaff to get to the wheat.
A Moving True Story.......2004-12-06
Amazing, fascinating, horrifying and sad is the story of Oscar Schindler, Emilie and others, as written in David M Crowe's well researched and easily readable biography. Oscar evolved into a deeply good good man, with great skill, courage and sharp wit, who flaws were also in many ways his strong points it seems to me in achieving what he did, and was an immensely admirable person. And it is sad that brilliant nice people don't usually get what they deserve, as loss of health and tragic failures after the war were the last things he deserved.
There are a lot of horrible events and people described in this book, but also acts of humanity, kindness and braveness by many in the Oscar Schindler story, those three traits in particular summing up Oscar. There are more than a few instances of the Nazi hypocracies and madness, being used against them as they are outwitted in this story. An amazing and moving story.
It's true that there's a lot of detail in this book and it can be hard going to keep up with it all, but i found the subject matter of Schindler enough to more than motivate me to keep turning the pages. One of the best sections of the book was Oscar's meeting in budapest i think it was, with aid organisation representatives for jews in occupied europe. Here you get a chance to discover what Oscar's thoughts were in relation to the war, holocaust and where he was at in action amongst it all. There is a lot of other detail in the book, not so involving, but the holocaust was a huge bureaucratic operation and apart from that, there weren't too many people with the liberty to document or concentrate on individual coming and goings, in the new cut throat order of the glorious third reich. So a lot of the superfluous information not directly relating to Oscars' daily life, is both understandably from a research point of view and also is relevant because this is precisely the world that Oscar was operating in.
I think the author has done a great job on bringing us a biography on a man whos life and good deeds, never really got the reward they deserved(which is why life is as it is!) and because Oscar remained relatively obscure, much of his life details just wern't important enough for anyone to record for prosperities sake. Mr Crowe is more critical of Oscar than i feel he should be, for example, he disaproves when Oscar tell's the afore mentioned agents in Budapest that they must admit, in the intellectual realm the jew is really a dangerous competitor for the nazis. Is that such a bad and unaccurate thing to say, in light of the situation?
I feel Schindler's own intelligence and strength of character is not given enough credit in the book; due to the fact that he was out to exploit the situation for personal monetary gain intially(i.e. he was a opportunistic business man cashing in on the war and occupation), and because he lost his health and failed after the war finished, it is easy to put his success down to war time craziness and the skill of the men running his factories. He was not a moral man in the conventional sense, he liked women, drinking and living in the moment but i think it was his free-spiritedness, that when given the power, compelled him to use it in a humanitarian way rather than worry about his own security, which is the accepted way to do things. Ultimately Oscar Schindler lived from his heart, he understood this, u get this from the book, and why the book is a great effort in bringing us his life story, to me the author's judgement on Oscar is not as good as it should be, due in part i suppose to the clinical unromantic objectivity that is expected of a researcher.
The Real Schindler's List.......2004-11-25
The historical Oskar Schindler is much more complex than the charming rogue portrayed in the "Schindler's List" of film and novel. In this definative new biography, Mr. Crowe has done impressive research in uncovering new archives and interviews to depict the Nazi spy/businessman who became a "righteous gentile" in saving Jews from certain death during World War II. Mr. Crowe is a Holocaust historian who has documented other Nazi atrocities in his 1996 work, "A History of the Gypies in Eastern Europe and Russia."
The reader will be surprised to learn that Oskar Schindler had nothing to do with the creation of the life-giving lists that gave the title to the film by Steven Spielberg and the book by Thomas Keneally. Schnidler was in prison briefly when the lists were created by other persons. This does not diminished the other heroic acts that Schindler and his wife performed to save the Jews they came in contact with during the final two years of the World War II. He spent his war-profiteering fortune on bribes and supplies for those Jews in his care.
It is sad that in the the madness of the Holocaust Oskar Schindler found the only success of his life. After the war, it was all downhill for the alcoholic womanizer who died in poverty in 1974. The book is very well-written and will interest those readers who desire to know what was the reality behind Schindler's List.
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Oskar Schindler: Saving Jews From The Holocaust (Holocaust Heroes and Nazi Criminals)
Ann Byers
Manufacturer: Enslow Publishers
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Amazon.com
Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist and counterintelligence operative made famous by Steven Spielberg's movie Schindler's List, did not think of himself as a hero, nor even as a particularly nice man. Nor should he have, suggests this memoir by his widow. Although he tried to temper the savage natures of men such as concentration camp commander Amon Goeth, and although he and Emilie managed to save the lives of several thousand Jewish inmates, his eye seems always to have been on the personal gain to be had in a given situation. The Schindlers emigrated to Argentina after the war and took up farming; Oskar later abandoned Emilie and returned to Europe. Where Light and Shadow Meet is a decidedly minor but nonetheless interesting addition to the literature of the Holocaust.
Book Description
In spare, eloquent prose, Emilie Schindler tells the story of the woman Steven Spielberg left in the shadows of Schindler's List. The woman who married Oskar Schindler tells the true story of their life together, what they did to save the Jews in their factories, and how this led to "Schindler's list." Emilie Schindler does not consider herself or her husband to have been heroes. As she writes in this moving memoir, "We only did what we had to." Born in Bohemia, she married Oskar Schindler in 1928, and moved from her beloved countryside to the city. It soon became clear that her marriage would have both its passions and its betrayals. Yet, she stayed with Oskar despite his infidelities, through his growing involvement with the Nazis, working for counterintelligence with him. She first, then he later, came to realize the costs of the Nazi takeover and became witnesses to its terrors. Their inward allegiance changed even as they needed to maintain patriotic appearances and close affiliations with the Nazis in power. At their two factories, saving the Jews became paramount. Emilie risked imprisonment for her nursing of their sick Jewish factory workers and her activities in the black market to feed them. Her stubbornness kept her fighting for food, even daring to ask a wealthy mill owner's wife to give them grain to feed her starving workers. This is the story of a woman's daily acts of bravery during Hitler's reign and how it mattered.
Customer Reviews:
Emilie and Oskar Schindler: A Different Perspective.......2007-01-13
The account of the Schindlers is very well known. For this reason, my review intentionally focuses on some little-known information relative to this interesting memoir provided by Oskar Schindler's widow.
Emilie Schindler recounts the challenges her husband faced in keeping his Jewish workers. Yet, all over the Reich, Jews were being spared from death and diverted into forced labor. A few hundred thousand known Jews survived the Nazi period in this manner. This fact contradicts Holocaust-uniqueness proponents, who had argued that ALL Jews were targeted for extermination, and, moreover, that practical matters were invariably shunted aside in the effort to locate and kill every possible Jew. The Schindlers' experience exemplifies the fact that the Germans were willing to spare some Jews provided that they would be useful to the Reich. And, with few exceptions, these Jewish forced laborers were not killed in the final hours of the war. Finally, the Schindlers' experience shows that the Germans WERE willing to let practical matters (namely the need for forced laborers) to get in the way of killing as many Jews as possible.
Emilie Schindler believes that Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, did not commit suicide. She believes that he was kidnapped from his home and forced to swallow poison (p. 95).
It is interesting to note that Oskar Schindler spoke Polish quite well (p. 49). Moreover, he had been involved in anti-Polish intelligence before the war. It also turns out that he was involved in the action of procuring Polish army uniforms for German intelligence (p. 32). These were later used in the German propaganda stunt in which "Polish" soldiers attacked the Germans, giving the latter a pretext for launching their war of aggression against Poland.
Emilie Schindler (p. 43) informs the reader that Polish forces were able to resist the German invaders for only 8 days. This is manifestly incorrect. Regular Polish forces fought both the invading Germans and Russians for 35 days. Then Polish guerilla warfare began and never stopped during the entire German occupation of Poland.
Very few non-Poles realize the fact that, as a final act of cultural genocide, the Germans planned to blow up the cultural cities of Krakow (Cracow) and Czestochowa (Tschenstochau). Emilie Schindler mentions the former (p. 50). Only the speedy arrival of the Red Army (and, not mentioned, Polish guerilla resistance) prevented this from happening. (I myself visited Krakow and saw the holes that the Germans had cut into the foundations of the historical buildings. These holes were to be filled with explosive charges. After the war, the holes were left unfilled as a testimony to German barbarism).
The Schindlers apparently had some sympathy for Poles. Emilie Schindler recounts an experience (pp. 58-59) during which she expressed anger and defiance to an SS man, whose dog had just bitten a Polish woman. In the plant at Brunnlitz, Oskar Schindler had not only Jewish forced laborers, but also Czech and Polish forced laborers. Owing to the shortage of food rations, Oskar Schindler always saw to it that the Jewish forced laborers were given more food, as they were forced to do heavier work (p. 85).
Where Dark and Bitter Meet.......2004-03-10
As a fan and avid reader of anything relating to WWII and the Holocaust, I was looking forward to reading this book. The only thing I knew about the Schindlers was from seeing the Speilberg movie, so I thought reading about their experience firsthand would be insightful and rewarding. In her introduction, Emilie states that her husband was not a hero and neither was she. This isn't a statement trying to discredit their actions, but rather an attitude that is commonplace among WWII survivors. Any soldier who receives a medal will tell you that he isn't a hero. The heroes are always described as those who gave their lives.
Emilie Schindler begins her very brief memoir with scattered stories, remembrances and incidences from her childhood that are meant to show us at once how inquisitive and stubborn she was, qualities that later served her during WWII. Her memories seem scattered here and there, with no focus, until she meets Oskar Schindler and marries him shortly thereafter. As she talks about their experience working as spies, she also highlights and rehashes Oskar's numerous affairs, some with acquaintances and the approval of mutual acquaintances. From the movie, we know that Oskar was not a faithful husband, but the trouble with Emilie's tirade is that she claims not to be angry at her husband. If she isn't angry, why is nearly a quarter of the memories about her husband's infidelities? And if she was so hurt by his actions, why did she stay with him? She talks about his mysterious and seductive nature that made women pursue him instead of vice versa, but there's no concrete reason to support both her anger at him and her staying with him. Even the words she claims to have uttered at his graveside for filming the Speilberg movie, seem hollow and untrue when viewed with what she has written previously. If she has forgiven him for his infidelities and leaving her, it certainly doesn't show in her scrambled prose. And the final lesson of the prologue that we are to "love one another" is almost laughable after her tirade against her husband.
I'm not trying to say that Emilie Schindler didn't love her husband, or that she doesn't deserve credit for her role in the so-called "Schindler's List", because the truth of the matter is that her and her husband saved over a thousand Jews. And without her help, Oskar Schindler most likely would not have succeeded. However, as inspiring as their story is, and could have been portrayed, this memoir is a bitter rant in disguise.
Very Disappointing.......2004-02-29
With my interest in World War II and the Holocaust, I eagerly anticipated reading this book as a supplementary material to "Schindler's List" the movie and my other books on the subject. While the book has its moments, it is very uneven. It almost seems that Emilie Schindler wrote this book to spite her husband and take some credit for his work. While I am sure she deserves more credit than she receives, the tone of the book almost seems bitter.
The book is short in length, almost too short for a memoir. Emilie Schindler gives a summary of her life at each stage. I felt that she had so much more to say at times, but held back. Particularly, the events involving protecting Jews during the Holocaust is far too brief. Mrs. Schindler spends more time talking about irresponsible behavior and infidelity in her marriage than I cared to read. Since the book was released shortly after the movie was released, it seems she is trying to discredit her husband.
Emilie Schindler does give some valuable insights into her life and her late husband's life that may not have been written before. For example, little has been written of their plight after the war. Before this book, little has been said about how Oskar left his wife after the living with her in Argentina for several years. Also, Mrs. Schindler points out some of the flaws in the movie "Schindler's List" while still acknowledging it was a good film.
What ruined this book for me was the bitter tone Emilie Schindler sets. I would rather focus on Oskar Schindler's great work than his flaws.
Not just a good read but an important one.......2003-06-29
Through print and screen we have learnt how Oskar Schindler, that Sudenten charmer, saved the lives of his Jewish workers in occupied Poland and Czechoslovakia during World War II. What was less recognised is the role in Oskar's activities of his wife, Emilie. She appears of course in Kenneally and Spielberg, but she is a small bit actor, confined to the margins. Now, finally, we hear from Emilie.
In a series of reminiscences, she tells us of her Catholic upbringing in Bohemia and her first meeting with Oskar. Entranced by his "mysterious, undefinable nature", marriage followed soon after. The coupling was not always a happy one though and Emilie says she was aware of her husband's extra-marital wanderings from the early days. Still, she stayed with him. Like other women, she couldn't pull herself away from what she described as Oscar's natural seductiveness.
Emilie's views on Oscar are insightful but the real story is her part in Oskar's acts of deliverance. Most noteworthy was her leadership and devotion to the surviving Jews of Goleschau, who arrived unannounced, emaciated, near death in frozen cattle cars in the middle of the night. In what was already a hellish situation, her quick thinking saved many at a time when Oskar was away on some business trip.
Some will be disappointed by this book's brevity and the narrative is a little disjointed in parts. But we now know more about Oskar's long-suffering wife and her part in the drama. It's well known that in 1967 Yad Vashem recognised Oskar as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. It is less publicised that in 1993 it correctly extended this recognition to Emilie. In the concluding lines to her story she invites us to toast her, as well as her husband. It's now time we did.
Where Light and Shadow Meet.......2002-05-30
I have been billed for this book, but still have never received it. I am still awaiting it and am disappointed.
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Heroes & Villains - Oskar Schindler (Heroes & Villains)
John F. Wukovits
Manufacturer: Lucent Books
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ASIN: 156006952X |
Book Description
One of the most complex individuals to emerge from World War II was Oskar Schindler, a member of the Nazi Party who, instead of persecuting Jews, ended up saving more than 1,200 lives. This book examines Schindler's motives, his extraordinary efforts in behalf of his Jewish workers, and the legacy that resulted.
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People Who Made History - Oskar Schindler (paperback edition) (People Who Made History)
Manufacturer: Greenhaven Press
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ASIN: 0737708948 |
Book Description
During the Holocaust, Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives by providing a sanctuary for them directly under the noses of the German executioners. This anthology considers who Schindler was, why he did so much while others did so little, and what his example tells us about the nature of moral virtue.
Customer Reviews:
--Didn't tell enough about Schindler--.......2003-04-16
This was not a concise biography of Oskar Schindler. Aside from a few pieces of information, the film SCHINDLER'S LIST gave me a better understanding of the man. Like the film, this was mostly about Schindler's heroic saving of Jews during World War II. This book skimmed over his early life and the years after the war which is really what I wanted to be informed about.
I did learn one very interesting fact that I had never read before and that had to do with the beginning of World War II and Germany's invasion of Poland. The author, Jeremy Roberts reports that at one point, Schindler had served as a spy for Germany before the war. Schindler's wife, Emilie said that her husband helped obtain Polish uniforms, which were used by German agents in Poland. In writing about the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, the author says:
" They came without warning, leading the way for long columns of tanks and men. SS soldiers dressed in Polish uniforms--perhaps based on designs Oskar Schindler had helped to steal--pretended to attack a German radio station. This was used as an excuse for the invasion. Other German soldiers parachuted behind Polish lines, where they helped trick many Poles to their deaths." I found this information amazing and I was disappointed to hear of Schindler's possible involvement. Perhaps saving Jewish lives was part of his atonement for earlier wrongs.
Book Description
Winner of the Booker Prize
Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Fiction
Schindler's List is a remarkable work of fiction based on the true story of German industrialist and war profiteer, Oskar Schindler, who, confronted with the horror of the extermination camps, gambled his life and fortune to rescue 1,300 Jews from the gas chambers.
Working with the actual testimony of Schindler's Jews, Thomas Keneally artfully depicts the courage and shrewdness of an unlikely savior, a man who is a flawed mixture of hedonism and decency and who, in the presence of unutterable evil, transcends the limits of his own humanity.
Customer Reviews:
pretty similar to the movie .......2007-09-25
I was surprised by how similar the book was to the movie; there was a little extra detail, but not on any major points. I thought it was reasonably easy to read, and it whetted my appetite for a factual biography of Schindler which I will soon start to read.
Engaging Tale of Heroism.......2007-07-30
This gripping book was published a decade before Steven Spielberg began filming the Academy-Award winning movie. Czech-German businessman Oscar Schindler (1908-74) was flawed and hedonistic, and he profited from Jewish slave labor in his wartime factory producing cookware for the Germany army. But Schindler had a big heart, and he took many risks to save his 1,100 employees (and others) from near-certain death at the hands of their Nazi captors. We see how Schindler operated, stuffing gifts into the hands of the SS commanders, and profiting from the skills of his fearful employees. Readers get a strong feel for Schindler's life, including his flaws and excesses. We also learn of his largely un-successful years after the war, where Schindler received support from some of the employees he'd saved, but was occasionally griped at by Germans for having betrayed the fatherland.
This gripping book resulted from a chance 1980 encounter between the author and Schindler employee Poldek Pefferberg (1913-2001) in the latter's Los Angeles store. Officially classified as fiction, this is a very real tale, and it contains much information the movie didn't have time for. In short, this superbly readable effort is worth your time even if you've seen the movie.
Amazing.......2007-07-08
Seriously what can I say about this book? IT IS AMAZING. If you haven't read it, have you been under a rock your whole life? The book definitely takes a long time to read/get through but it is worth it. The story is so interesting, inspirational, and tugs at your heartstrings. The movie is great too. So if you're not much of a reader, watch the movie.
True Hero.......2007-06-01
Schindler was an amazing man that gave hope to many Jewish people in a era where they all thought there was no hope what so ever. Schindler saw past what many other NAZI's saw, Jew's are people to, with the same hopes and dreams as any other person. They shouldn't be executed due to their religious beliefs. Keneally did a great job portraying the hurt and pain of the Jewish people during the holocaust, a horendous event that took place during World War Two. Highly Recommended AMAZING BOOK!!
A rare glimmer of hope in a hopeless era.......2007-02-11
Although I have read previous works of fiction by Thomas Keneally, who is one of Australia's overlooked treasures, I picked up this particular novel (as have many readers) because I recently re-screened the movie.
I was especially heartened to realize that Spielberg stuck largely to the facts and the incidents related in this book. Even the girl in the red dress (which I was sure was a cheesy embellishment) really existed: her name was Genia and "in red cap, red coat, small red boots," she was the last of a column of evacuees who witnessed the cold-blooded execution of a family found hiding in the ghetto. Seeing Genia see the execution convinced Oskar Schindler the horror of what was happening: "They permitted witnesses, such witnesses as the red toddler, because they believed the witnesses all would perish too."
Although this is a "novel," Keneally in the introduction is careful to stress he attempted "to avoid all fiction" while distinguishing between the facts and the myth of Oskar Schindler himself. That is, he uses the novelist's craft to re-create dialogue and reconstruct incidents to fashion a narrative that tries to explain why a seemingly amoral industrialist would go to such lengths--to risk his own life and to undergo (on three occasions) imprisonment by the SS--in order to save a community with whom he had the most tenuous connection. For this "novel," the author interviewed dozens of survivors and his book tries to sift and reconcile their various accounts and memories of a man whose life was otherwise unremarkable.
While most of us would like to think we would be as brave, it's almost impossible to explain Schindler's success, much less his motives. But, for two reasons, Keneally's book is hardly a hagiography: Schindler is presented as a deeply flawed, even selfish man, and the people he rescued proved to be equally courageous--and many of the survivors are presented in far more detail than is possible in a two-hour movie. The novel makes clear that this is as much their story as Oskar Schindler's; their survival was a coordinated effort by a large group rather than a miracle effected by one man. And Commandant Amon Goeth, whose villainy, incredibly, is even worse than the character depicted in the film, comes across not simply as an evil man but, in the end, a truly pathetic and cowardly one.
"Schindler's List" is not meant to be a history of the Holocaust. This biographical novel is set in a terrible time and a unique place, and its perhaps unseemly hopefulness can seem jarringly out of place for an epoch that had no silver linings. Instead, Keneally's (and Schindler's) underlying story is a lesson for us all: what might have happened if there had been not one, but one thousand Oskar Schindlers.
Customer Reviews:
gut buch.......2000-04-05
The book kept me interested but it wasnt edge of the seat action but i would definately recommend it
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Oskar Schindler: Legenda a fakta
Jitka Gruntova
Manufacturer: Barrister & Principal
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