A Dinner with Oskar Schindler by Kaitlyn

A Dinner with Oskar Schindler by Kaitlyn - February 2016 Scholarship Essay

If I could have dinner with any historical figure, I would choose Oskar Schindler for three main reasons: his courage, dedication. and the legacy he left behind. I find World War II an interesting period in history and the first time I watched Schindler’s List, I became interested in his story.
“If you saw a dog going to be crushed under a car, wouldn’t you help him?” (Schindler). It was a courageous act when Schindler decided to risk everything, including his life, for the 1,200 Jews. Oskar Schindler began his plan in helping the Jews by beginning a business where his workers were all Jews. Inside this factory, defective bullets were made for German guns. This was a risk Schindler took. If he were to be caught, Schindler would most likely lose his life and the lives of his workers. During the war, Schindler had to move his factory many times. During one of the movements, three hundred women and children were mistakenly routed to Auschwitz. Instead of letting them die, he immediately rescued them and had them sent to Brunnlitz where his factory had been moved to. No matter the risk, Schindler suck to his decision to help the Jews that he could. “I had to help them. There was no choice” (Schindler).
Schindler was dedicated to his mission to save as many Jews as he could by the end of the war. Schindler made a list of more than eleven hundred names. The list contained all of the employees of the Emalia Camp and more. Every Jew in his factory was on that list and Schindler did everything he could to protect them. He spent every penny he had to bribe and pay off Amon Goeth and other Nazi officials. No-one in his factory was beaten or killed and everyone was fed. Schindler would registered the old as being twenty years younger, children as adults, and everyone as metal workers and mechanics. This way, everyone in the factory was viewed as essential. Schindler even went as far as to spend every night in his office so he can intervene if the Gestapo come when he instructed the Nazi guards to stay on their side of the fence and not enter his factory without permission. Finally, Schindler could leave his workers with this message; "My children, you are saved. Germany has lost the war."
To this day, Oskar Schindler is well known. The Jews that he saved are known as Schindlerjuden or Schindler's children.When he died, Schindler had five hundred Schindlerjuden attended his funeral. He later had a book written about him and a movie produced. As a result of Schindler’s courage, more than six thousand Holocaust survivors and their descendants were alive in the 1990s to help tell Schindler’s story. Today there are more than 6,000 descendants of Schindler's Jews living in the USA and Europe, and many in Israel. Upon his headstone, there is a verse engraved on it. “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire”-Talmud Yerushalmi, Sanhedrin 4:12