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An ethnic German and a Catholic, he remained in Svitavy during the interwar period and held Czech citizenship after Moravia was incorporated into the newly established Czechoslovak Republic in He also served in the Czechoslovak army and in attained the rank of lance corporal in the reserves. In February , five months after the German annexation of the Sudetenland, he joined the Nazi Party.

An opportunist businessman with a taste for the finer things in life, he seemed an unlikely candidate to become a wartime rescuer. While Schindler operated two other factories in Krakow, only at Emalia did he employ Jewish workers who resided in the nearby Krakow ghetto. At its peak strength in , Emalia employed 1, workers; at least 1, were Jewish forced laborers, whom the Germans had relocated from the Krakow ghetto after its liquidation in March to the forced labor camp and later concentration camp Krakau-Plaszow.

Although the prisoners deployed at Emalia were still subject to the brutal conditions of the Plaszow concentration camp, Schindler intervened repeatedly on their behalf, through bribes and personal diplomacy, both for the well-being of Jews threatened on an individual basis and to ensure, until late , that the SS did not deport his Jewish workers.

In order to claim the Jewish workers to be essential to the war effort, he added an armaments manufacturing division to Emalia. During the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto in March , Schindler allowed his Jewish workers to stay at the factory overnight. In addition to the approximately 1, Jewish forced laborers registered as factory workers, Schindler permitted Jews working in other nearby factories to live at Emalia as well, saving them from the systematic brutality and arbitrary murder that was part of daily life in Plaszow.

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Schindler did not act here without risk or cost; his protection of his Jewish workers and some of his shady business dealings led SS and police authorities to suspect him of corruption and of giving unauthorized aid to Jews. German SS and police officials arrested him three times, while he owned Emalia, but were unable to charge him. One of his assistants drew several versions of a list of up to 1, Jewish prisoners needed to work in the new factory.

By presenting bogus production figures, Schindler justified the existence of the sub-camp as an armaments factory and thus facilitated the survival of over 1, Jews, sparing them the horrors and brutality of conventional camp life. After the war, Schindler and his wife Emilie settled in Regensburg, Germany, until , when they immigrated to Argentina.

In , permanently separated but not divorced from Emilie, Schindler returned alone to Germany. Emilie was similarly honored in