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August 22, 2025 7 mins

On this episode of Our American Stories, before the war, Oskar Schindler was a businessman chasing opportunity, even if it meant joining the Nazi Party. But when he witnessed the brutality unfolding around him in occupied Poland, he made a choice that would define his life. Through cunning, bribery, and sheer nerve, Schindler used his factory to protect over 1,200 Jews from deportation to Nazi death camps. Our own Greg Hengler shares the story behind Spielberg's famous movie: the real account of the man, and the lives he saved. 

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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib and this is our American stories,
the show where America is the star, and the American
people coming to you from the city where the West begins,
Fort Worth, Texas. It's been said that a hero is
someone who is brave just a little bit longer. Oscar
Schindler was an unlikely World War Two hero, a member

(00:31):
of the Nazi Party, a war profiteer, and a husband
who strayed and drank to excess. But this man saved
twelve hundred people from certain death in German Nazi concentration camps.
Schindler employed these prisoners in his enamel and ammunition factories,
where he provided washrooms, dentists, grocery, laundry, cobblers, tailors, and

(00:53):
medical care. At the height of the war, Schindler mastered
of fortune, and he spent all of it to these Jews.
What you're about to hear of the stories of Schindler's survivors,
here's Greg Hangler.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
We think we know what goodness looks like. It looks
like Gandhi skinny and dressed in his handmade loincloth, or
mother Teresa drab and subdued and her nun's habit. Goodness
does not drink woman eyes and wear Nazi patches, or

(01:32):
does it. In his acclaimed international best seller Schindler's Arc,
author Thomas Kanneely tells us that one of the most
common sentiments of the Schindler Jews is still I don't
know why he did it. Kanneely drops a hint in
his description of Oscar Schindler's childhood a strong Catholic household

(01:55):
and deeply religious parents. The nearest neighbors were a Jewish
rabbi family, and the two sons were Oscar's closest friends
for years. The Helen Rosenswik, a Jewish maid at the
Crackoule concentration camp who settled in Boca Ratan, Florida. Schindler's

(02:15):
close relationship with the Nazi SS camp commandant and his
concern for Jews was confusing.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
Askar Schindler came down into the kitchen and he took
me to the window. He says, you see the people
down the hill. They carried stone, they were digging the hill.
He said, look at them, watch them. You see people
in Egypt, your Jewish people, when they were enslaved and
then they were freed from Egypt. This is what's gonna

(02:45):
happen to you. You will see You're going to be
free from that hell.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Schindler made good on his promise. He also saved Helen's siblings.
In a nineteen sixty four interview, standing in front of
his dingy apartment in West Germany, Oscar Schindler for once
commented on what he did. I felt the Jews were
being destroyed, and it didn't mean anything to me that

(03:15):
they were Jewish. To me, they were just human beings.
I had to help them. There was no choice. Schindler
was so obedient to practice love towards imprisoned Jews that
he eventually paid a price. Here's one of Schindler's Jews
who immigrated to the United States after the war, Leon Leyson.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
On one occasion, he had his birthday party and some
of the inmates baked the cake and a little girl,
young girl, took it up to the office and gave
it to him. So he gave her a kiss, and this,
of course was a major crime during that period of time.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Schindler was subsequently arrested. It was one of three separate arrests,
but he was able to talk and bribe his way
out of all of them. On the eve of May eighth,
nineteen forty five, Oscar Schindler had important news that the
Jews in his care waited five years to hear. Here

(04:25):
again is Leon Layson and Saul Erbach, who settled in
New Jersey in nineteen fifty one.

Speaker 4 (04:32):
Schindler asked us all to gather around. He stood up
on something high and he told us that we were free.
The war is over, the Germans have surrendered, and that
he was going to leave, and these Cards who were

(04:53):
standing around behind him, we're going to leave as well.
And he wished as well.

Speaker 5 (05:00):
Everyone there was either in tears or in laughs or
trying to crawl toward Schindler to kiss him and thank
him personally, which was impossible to do with a thousand people.
It was an emotionally charged gathering where we just were
short of being able to express our feelings the unbelievable

(05:25):
achievement that we have survived the war, and it was
Oscar Schindler that brought us to this point.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Following World War Two, Oscar Schindler was isolated and rejected
by his fellow citizens. He was called a jew kisser,
sworn at on the streets, and stones were thrown at him.
Nobody would do business with him. There was even an
attempt on his life. It was said that he was
their bad conscience, the conscience of all those who had

(05:57):
known something but did nothing. Two decades after his release,
Leon Lason reunited with his rescuer in Los Angeles. He
wasn't sure if Schindler would recognize him, but no reminder
proved necessary.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
I reached out my hand and started to introduce myself
because I realized you and I was a grown man,
and last time he saw me, I was not yet fifteen,
you know. So he interrupted me. He says, I know
who you are, your little mason.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Oscar Schindler took on perhaps one of the toughest forces
of the twentieth century and saved over twelve hundred Jews
during a time where over six million were being exterminated.
If you picked up a handful of sand, it would
have over a thousand grains. Over a thousand souls lived

(07:00):
because of one Oscar Schindler. On October ninth, nineteen seventy four,
Oscar Schindler died upon his request. They buried him in Israel.
Five hundred of his survivors who were there, and we.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
Love doing the show, just as stories like these the
story of Schindler's survivors here on our American Stories, Lee Habib, Here,
as we approach our nation's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary,
I'd like to remind you that all the history stories
you hear on this show are brought to you by

(07:39):
the great folks at Hillsdale College. And Hillsdale isn't just
a great school for your kids or grandkids to attend,
but for you as well. Go to Hillsdale dot edu
to find out about their terrific free online courses. Again,
go to Hillsdale dot edu and sign up for their
free and terrific online courses.
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Host

Lee Habeeb

Lee Habeeb

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