Oskar Schindler Document Collection.

SCHINDLER, Oskar.

$25,000.00

Item Number: 118106

Rare collection of original documents primarily obtained by Oskar and Emilie Schindler in preparation for their post-WWII emigration to Argentina in 1949. The collection includes a color photograph of Schindler seated on a couch annotated by him on the verso, “1957 in Amerika”, an Italian emigration certificate dated September 1949 authorizing Emilie Schindler to travel from Italy to Argentina, two boarding cards dated  October 4, 1949 listing Oskar and Emilie Schindler as passengers aboard the Campagnia Genovese d’Armamento traveling from Genoa to Buenos Aires, legal certificates stating the Emilie had no criminal record, and a medical card for Emilie Schindler issued by the Delegacion of Argentina on October 10, 1949 with a small pocket on the verso containing a black and white X-Ray slide of her lungs. Oskar and Emilie exhausted their savings leasing and operating the German Enamelware Factory during World War II, which at its peak in 1944, employed over 1,000 Jews, saving them from deportation by the Gestapo. By the end of the war, Schindler had spent his entire fortune on bribes and black market purchases of supplies for his workers and in 1949, with financial help from a Jewish organization, he and Emilie moved to Argentina to begin a farming business. By 1957, the business went bankrupt and Schindler returned to West Germany alone. He never saw his Emilie again, although they remained married. In near fine condition. An exceptional collection.

German industrialist and member of the Nazi party Oskar Schindler saved of nearly 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories in occupied Poland and the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. In January 1940, with the financial backing of several Jewish investors, Schindler leased the German Enamelware Factory, which, at its peak in 1944, employed over 1,000 Jews. Initially, Schindler was mostly interested in the money-making potential of the business and hired Jews because they were cheaper than Poles—the wages were set by the occupying Nazi regime. Later he began shielding his workers without regard for cost. The status of his factory as a business essential to the war effort became a decisive factor enabling him to help his Jewish workers. Whenever Schindlerjuden (Schindler Jews) were threatened with deportation, he claimed exemptions for them. He claimed wives, children, and even people with disabilities were necessary mechanics and metalworkers. Schindler's heroics during World War II were immortalized in the famous 1993 film Schindler's List, produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian.