A ring for a Nazi?

The Holocaust

When you think about something so horrific, the atrocities are so staggering that your mind resists the idea that they could emerge from human nature, or that any single person could possess the cruelty necessary to recreate hell. The answer is no. The Holocaust wasn’t singular; it wasn’t a single act of terror or menace.

It was a systematic procedure designed to ethnically cleanse the Jews, to strip them of their civil rights, and treat them worse than animals. So brutal was this reality that a doctor in Kraków poisoned his own parents and granted them a peaceful death to spare them from being savagely murdered by Nazi soldiers during the liquidation of the ghetto.

Dr. Aleksandrowicz wrote in his memoirs that, once he was certain the bedridden patients in his hospital would be killed, he administered cyanide to spare them that ordeal.

The desperation of Jewish slave labourers to appear healthy and avoid being sent to concentration camps is reflected in their practice of pricking their bodies and using their blood to appear lively during random inspections conducted to identify and exterminate those deemed unfit for labour.

But what even is a systematic procedure? Does it not include individual efforts to carry out higher orders of devastation? It absolutely does.

Amon Göth, a sadistic and corrupt Nazi officer in charge of the Kraków ghetto, shot the boy who served as his valet because he was moving too slowly. He trained his dogs to tear Jewish slave labourers apart for recreation and later shot the Jewish dog trainer because the dogs had formed an attachment to him. He sold the rations intended for inmates to profit from the black market. He was subsequently arrested for corruption, though the charges were eventually dropped. He was later hanged for war crimes.

Amon Göth

Ironically, there are crimes greater than war itself, crimes etched into history in bloody words.

The Face of Hell

Jews were not initially informed of their fate and were transported in train wagons with no windows, no washrooms, no running water, and no food. Many perished due to the horrific conditions aboard the trains. The deportation process was infamously referred to as “resettlement to the East,” and they were promised that their luggage would be sent after them once they arrived at the labour camps.

The luggage, marked with family names and identifying information, never left the station.

shoes collected outside Auschwitz, where prisoners were led inside under the pretense of showering and cleansing themselves, only to be murdered minutes later.

Schindler’s list.

A Jewish worker, formerly belonging to an affluent social class, breaks off his gold-plated tooth and melts it down to form a ring for Oskar Schindler, a Nazi Party member who operated an enamelware and ammunition factory. Such an act seems baffling until you understand who Oskar Schindler was.

Originally, Oskar Schindler established an enamelware factory in 1940 in the city of Kraków. Seeking monetary profit, he hired more and more Jews because they were cheaper labour than Poles. Later, however, he began shielding his workers without regard for their profitability. His closest friend and accountant was Itzhak Stern, a Jewish accountant who helped Schindler manage his factory and finances and eventually drew up a list of approximately 1,200 Jewish workers who were effectively “bought” by Schindler to save them from their cruel and barbaric fate. He heavily bribed corrupt Nazi officials to keep his workers alive and safe, spending approximately $20 million in present-day adjusted value.

Oskar Schindler was not originally a paladin. He was a troublemaker who spent his wife’s dowry on a flashy car and pursued numerous mistresses. One of the things that motivated him to open the factory and exploit the opportunity to his advantage was a desire for cold, hard money. He did everything he could to maximize profits, and he eventually succeeded. It is unknown what exactly changed within him, but he began to feel responsible for the Jews working for him and did anything and everything he could to save them.

In return, he was deeply loved by his workers, and the people he saved still refer to themselves as “Schindler’s Jews” to this day.

He continued to live with financial support from the Jews he had saved until he died of illness in 1974.

Oskar Schindler

He was a complex hero a hero nevertheless. He converted his enamelware factory into an ammunition factory to avoid having it classified as a non-essential enterprise by Nazi officials and risk being shut down.

But did he manufacture desirable goods? No. He concealed losses and produced faulty bullets and useless ammunition; he did not want to participate in the killing of any other human being. To avoid arousing suspicion among Nazi officials and endangering the lives of his workers, he occasionally obtained desirable goods from the black market and sold them as products of his own factory.

Oskar Schindler with some of the people he rescued.

The stark difference between Oskar Schindler and Amon Göth is staggering. They lived under the same flag, served the same regime, and possessed the same freedom to choose. One became a face of cruelty; the other became a refuge from it. Thousands live today because Oskar Schindler decided that human lives were worth more than profit, comfort, or safety. Few people leave the world better than they found it. Schindler left behind entire bloodlines.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

https://mra.piebm.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/2_The_Jewish_medical_institutions.pdf

https://listverse.com/2017/03/27/10-survival-tricks-used-during-the-holocaust/

https://unpacked.media/schindler-wasnt-who-you-think-he-was/

https://www.gedenkstaette-stille-helden.de/en/silent-heroes/biographies/biographie/detail-479#Inline-1

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Amon-Goth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amon_G%C3%B6th

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Jonas-Rosenzweig

https://listverse.com/2017/03/27/10-survival-tricks-used-during-the-holocaust/

https://www.yadvashem.org/holocaust/about/final-solution/deportation.html