Schindler, Oskar (1908–1974)

Czechoslovak industrialist and Jewish benefactor. A flamboyantly successful businessman, he set up a factory in Cracow, Poland, soon after the German invasion of 1939. He established good relations with the occupying forces and, through gifts and lavish entertainment, persuaded them to let him employ Jewish workers. He saved many hundreds of Jews from death in concentration camps by bribing the Nazis to release them into his ‘custody’.

His activities, which earned him the gratitude and respect of the Zionist movement, were recorded in the form of a novel Schindler's Ark 1982, by Australian author Thomas Keneally, and later translated into an Academy Award-winning film Schindler's List by Steven Spielberg.