Oskar Schindler (April 28, 1908 – October 9, 1974) was an ethnic German industrialist.
Schindler was also a German spy, and member of the Nazi party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and munitions factories, which were located in what is now Poland and the Czech Republic respectively. He is the subject of the 1982 novel Schindler’s Ark, and the subsequent 1993 film Schindler’s List, which reflected his life as an opportunist initially motivated by profit who came to show extraordinary initiative, tenacity, and dedication in order to save the lives of his Jewish employees.
Schindler moved to Germany after the war, where he was supported by assistance payments from Jewish relief organizations. After receiving a partial reimbursement for his wartime expenses, he moved with his wife to Argentina, where they took up farming. When he went bankrupt in 1958, Schindler left his wife and returned to Germany, where he failed at several business ventures and relied for financial support on his Schindlerjuden (“Schindler Jews”) – the people whose lives he had saved during the war. He was named Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli government in 1963 and died on October 9, 1974.