Claim profile

Oskar Schindler

German industrialist and Holocaust rescuer (1908–1974)

  • Fame63.1
  • Momentum0.8
  • Founders rank#84
Source-basedStable
  • Fame63.1
  • Momentum0.8
  • Founders rank#84
  • Wikipedia161.1K
Lived 1908–1974, aged 66
FoundersFounder
  • Wikipedia
    74 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Era
    1908–1974
    Aged 66
  • Known for
    Schindler
    1983
Summary
Updated 2026-08-28

A German industrialist who saved 1,200 Jews from the gas chambers by employing them in his factories and spending his entire fortune on bribes to keep them alive through the Holocaust.

Biography

About

Schindler grew up in Moravia and joined Nazi military intelligence in 1936, collecting information on railways and troop movements before the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. He joined the Nazi Party in 1939 and acquired an enamelware factory in Kraków that year, which employed about 1,750 workers at its peak in 1944, including 1,000 Jews. His intelligence connections allowed him to shield his workers from deportation, trading ever-larger bribes and black market goods for their safety. In July 1944, as the SS began liquidating camps and sending prisoners to Auschwitz, Schindler convinced t…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Oskar Schindler

Oskar Schindler
said
What is there to say? They are my friends. I would do it again, over and over — for I hate cruelty and intolerance.
— Remark in 1972, as quoted in "Schindler: Why did he do it?" (2010) by Louis Bülow.
Oskar Schindler
said
I knew the people who worked for me. When you know people, you have to behave towards them like human beings.
— Response in 1965, to Moshe Bejski, one of the Schindlerjuden, who later a became a justice on the Supreme Court of Israel and president of
Oskar Schindler
said
The persecution of Jews in occupied Poland meant that we could see horror emerging gradually in many ways.
— Interview at Am Hauptbahn No. 4 in Frankfurt Am Main, West Germany (1964), quoted in The Oscar Schindler Story (2012).
Oskar Schindler
saidundated
I hated the brutality, the sadism, and the insanity of Nazism. I just couldn't stand by and see people destroyed.
— On his metamorphosis from a Nazi party member to a saviour of Jews in witnessing the genocidal practices of the "Final Solution", as quoted
Oskar Schindler
saidundated
Beyond this day, no thinking person could fail to see what would happen. I was now resolved to do everything in my power to defeat the system.
— After witnessing a day of Nazi roundups of Jews in Krakow, as quoted in Schindler's List (1982) by Thomas Keneally, Ch. 15.
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
By the numbers

Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Stable
63.1
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum0.8
Historical29.8
Now attention4.1
Source confidence70.0
Completeness70.0
Global rank
—
Country rank
—
Category rank
#84
Receipts

Sources

  • Wikipedia
    wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
    High confidence
  • Wikidata
    wikidata · wikidata.org
    High confidence
  • Pantheon 2.0
    database · pantheon.world
    High confidence