Emilie Schindler

Emilie Schindler

Emilie Schindler ・ 120cm x 100cm ・ Acrylic on Canvas

“Oskar and I were no heroes. We just did what we had to do as human beings.”

„Oskar und ich waren keine Helden. Wir haben nur getan, was wir als Menschen tun mussten.“

The Schindlers saved the lives of over 1,200 persecuted people during the Holocaust. The foundation for this was already laid in 1937, when Oskar Schindler took over an insolvent enamel goods factory in what is now known as the Czech Republic. Shortly thereafter, two more armaments factories follow. The couple does everything they can to enable the mostly Jewish forced laborers to lead a decent life. In 1944 they even set up a secret hospital in the factory, where Emilie Schindler looked after around 100 Jewish people who were already waiting to be transported to a concentration camp. When, due to the approaching eastern front, there was a threat of the “war-related“ companies being evacuated and their employees being deported, the entrepreneur‘s wife – thanks to her negotiating skills – managed to obtain permission to take her employees with her. The couple put more than a thousand people on the famous list, which saved their lives by providing false personal information. When Steven Spielberg brought the story to the cinemas in 1994, Oskar Schindler had already been dead for 20 years. The merits of his wife, who at the time lived in poor circumstances in Argentina, faded into the background on the screen. In 2001, Emilie Schindler returned to Germany at the age of 93. She dies three months later as a result of a stroke in Strausberg near Berlin.