Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities, and the True Story behind the List

The Holocaust was a massive attempt to terminate an entire ethnic group, the Jews. Also in the process, many non-Jews, including Christians, gypsies, homosexuals, and just about anyone caught opposing Hitler’s regime faced death in the concentration camps. German businessman with an inclination towards greed Oskar Schindler during the Holocaust had an opportunity to make big, but ended up losing virtually all his money trying to save the Jews working in his factory, saving at least 1100 Jews from the Holocaust.

When David M.Crowe decided to write biography “Oskar Schindler: The Untold Account of His Life, Wartime Activities, and the True Story behind the List,” Oskar Schindler was already a known figure, thanks to the works by Steven Spielberg and Thomas Keneally who were men of talent, filmmakers, and novelists. David Crowe as a historian presented Oskar in historical perspective backed by series of primary researches to answer many of the myths surrounding this personality - spy, industrialist, bon vivant, Nazi Party member, Righteous Gentile.

It was December of 1939 when occupied Poland was torn apart by the savagery of Holocaust that Oskar Schindler took a first tentative step from the darkness of Nazism towards the light of wisdom. "If you saw a dog going to be crushed under a car," he said later of his wartime actions, "wouldn't you help him?"

David Crowe collects information regarding family, business, political activities of Oskar Schindler. Crowe did prodigious research and in the end came to gather huge information about Schindler. While exploring Schindler, Crowe also describes the wider political and economic environment under which Schindler worked.

Crowe remains in touch with Steven Spielberg’s movie Schindler's List and Thomas Keneally’s novel Schindler's Ark adding more inputs. This book is a treatise on Oskar Schindler, who despite all his shortcomings, underwent a transformation and became the single largest German rescuer of Jews.

Oskar Schindler despite all his greed to make money could not watch Jews killed mercilessly. The book also provides details of number of German officials terminating Jews centered around Schindler’s domain, and also glimpses of the death camps. Hitler wanted to wipe out the entire Jews community. Schindler saved over a thousand Jews by putting them on the famed "Schindler's List" and transferring them to his factory in today's Czech Republic. Crowe tells here for the first time how the "List" was prepared.

Although married to Emilie at nineteen, Schindler was never without a mistress or two. He was reckless in business trying to make big, presided over the demise of his family business, and became salesman when opportunity came in the guise of war. Schindler marched to Poland on the heels of the SS. He succeeded in making big in the black market by alluring officials with bribes and women. But somewhere something changed and by the end of the war he spent everything on rescuing at least 1100 Jewish men and women. After the war ended, Schindler moved to Argentina with his wife and bought a farm. In 1958, he abandoned his land, his wife, and his mistresses, and returned to Germany. The remaining years of his life were spent divided between Germany and Israel, where he was honored and taken care of by his "Schindlerjuden."

Oskar Schindler died in Hildesheim in 1974. Schindler was a greedy businessman, not a good son, not a good husband, but still his wife admitted that despite excesses, he had a big and loving heart for which she was forced to forgive her time and again.