Schindler’s List

Back in September 1939, soon after Germany invaded Poland, Schindler comes to Cracow. Although within a month, he shows signs of being discontent with Nazism, he can see that Cracow is a good location and that he can make a lot of money there.

Schindler’s family is from Moravia, once a part of Austria, which became part of Czechoslovakia in 1918. Young Hitler would eventually become obsessed with reuniting German-speaking people in areas like where Schindler grew up. Schindler’s mother was a devout Catholic, while his father was a heavy drinker and smoker and more dismissive of religion (as his son, too, would eventually be). Schindler had a couple Jewish school friends growing up, and his next-door neighbor was a rabbi.

Young Schindler didn’t care about race or nationality; he was most interested in motorcycles. In 1928, he competed in a series of races. He even came close to winning a major race against some of the best in Europe, but he failed after losing track of the laps and stopping too soon.

The summer after all his motorcycle races, Schindler met his future wife, Emilie, and married her after just six weeks. She was a farmer’s daughter who was devout but looking to escape her quiet life. Neither set of parents approved of the marriage, and Emilie’s father refused to pay her full dowry.

Schindler and Emilie got an apartment in Zwittau. During the 1930s, Schindler began staying out late in cafes and talking to girls. His father’s business went bankrupt in 1935—the same year that his father left his mother. Though it was the Great Depression, Schindler had enough contacts and charm to get a job as a sales manager at a company called Moravian Electrotechnic.

The death of Schindler’s mother caused a rift between him and his father. By that point, Schindler was wearing the symbol of the German Party (something his late mother mildly disapproved of). Schindler wasn’t especially political, but because the people in Czechoslovakia who didn’t wear the emblem were usually Communists or Social Democrats, Schindler wore the emblem to distinguish himself from them (and because it was good for business with German companies).

When Moravia is invaded in 1939, however, Schindler finds himself less enthralled with the Nazis and begins to feel that the new regime is tyrannical. Schindler’s father and Emilie believe Hitler is destined to fail.

Schindler meets a German named Eberhard Gebauer who is with a German intelligence agency called the Abwehr. He knows Schindler is an outgoing man who has contacts across the Polish border and asks Schindler if he’d be willing to provide military and industrial intelligence about Poland, as well as look for German Poles to recruit. Schindler agrees, perhaps because he knows being an Abwehr agent will make him exempt from army service, although Schindler doesn’t necessarily disapprove of Germany’s invasion of Poland. His real problem is with Himmler and the SS, and he seems to believe that Gebauer and his Abwehr colleagues are preferable.