OSKAR SCHINDLER OPPORTUNIST OR HERO Name Institution Affiliation Course Date of Submission Oskar Schindler Opportunist or Hero Introduction Oskar Schindler was born to a middle-class catholic family that belonged to the German speaking community in the Sudetenland in April 1908. He attended to a German grammar school to study engineering in order to follow the foot steps of his father to run the family farm-machinery plant. Most of his childhood and school friends were Jews, but he never developed a lasting relationship with each of them. Just as most of the Sudetenland youth he joined the German party that which supported the Nazi Germany that strove to for the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and their union to Germany. The incorporation of Sudetenland to Nazi Germany led Oskar to become a formal member of the Nazi party. It was after the outbreak of World War II that Oskar showed up in the occupied Krakow, the ancient city that was home to thousands of Jews and a seat of the German occupation administration. The city proved to be highly productive to German entrepreneurs, as they hoped to capitalize on the adversity of the subjugated country to make a fortune. The initial motives of Oskar were to capitalize on the cheap labor available in Krakow in to his industries. He acquired a run-down enamel factory which originally belonged to a Jew, and cleverly maneuvered his steps from the advice of a commercial polish Jewish accountant to build himself a fortune. Outside Krakow, he started a factory producing kitchenware for the German army, which began to row on leaps and bounds. Within three months his factory had gathered workforce of 250 polish workers among them seven Jews. It was until 1942 that the factory expanded into a mammoth enamel and ammunition production plant. The plant occupied about 45,000 squire meters and employing almost 800 men and women of which 370 were Jews from the Krakow ghetto the Germans established after entering the city. Oskar ...