Oskar Schindler is an excellent example of a person, flawed as he may have been, that acted out against injustice during the Second World War, and helped to preserve the lives of many Jews that perhaps would have perished at the hands of Nazi tyranny. Schindler made a quick start for himself as both profiteer and influential Nazi Party member early on in the war, but when faced with the gruesome atrocities advocated by the Nazi regime, his attitude changed and, unlike countless many, he did not sit quietly by and watch as millions were murdered. Instead he assumed the unlikely role of a philanthropist in a time when it was a crime to be human.

In the years before the Second World War became an international conflict that upset the balance on the world and was confined only to Hitler’s invasions of surrounding countries like Austria and Poland, Oskar Schindler sought to ingratiate himself with prominent Nazi Party officials. He proved to be extremely well suited and adept at the role of winning people, over to his cause, and though far from an astute businessman, in combination with his accountant, Itzhak Stern, he was able to successfully start an industrious factory in Krakow. Stern, once a prominent Jewish businessman, was able to effectively run the company, despite his position of bondage, while Schindler sold Nazi officials on the idea. Schindler was able to, in effect, buy Jewish holocaust prisoners from Amon Coeth, the commandant who oversaw the Krakow ghetto and the sundry labor projects forced upon the Jewish inhabitants. At this point in time, Schindler was nothing more than a profiteer, and though he had no real allegiance to anyone but himself and his own financial gain, he was promoting the Nazi Party by not dissenting against its exploitation of Jews and other perceived outcasts of society. He bribed and stroked officials into allowing him to profit off of Jewish slave labor.

Despite portrayals by film and literature, it is impossible to specifically name the point at which Schindler changed his mind in regards to the Jewish people. The movie Schindler’s List depicts him having a sudden attack of conscience as he watched the dead bodies of women and children being carted through the streets of Krakow during its evacuation and subsequent destruction. In truth, Schindler probably began to change long before that single moment. He obviously had grown attached to Itzhak Stern and several of the other Jewish businessmen and workers he came into contact with frequently during the operation of his factory. Perhaps from the very outset he never shared in the fervor that caused ordinary citizens to believe themselves a higher form of life than Jews, homosexuals, and gypsies. Thus it is hard to say exactly what caused Schindler to abandon his ambitions and begin the quest to save lives from impending genocide.

What can be said in Schindler’s favor is that when he set his mind, he world tirelessly until it was accomplished. Generally speaking, protesters on moral grounds seek to separate themselves from those they consider to be offenders of righteousness. Whether it makes him any more or less an advocate of justice, Schindler did what few had the courage to do. He had already set himself up as one of the enemy, and following his decision to save the Jews in his factory, he did nothing to sever the tie but rather became on with the enemy and from inside their own ranks was able to manipulate their own system in order to contradict their cause. It is far more of an amazing feat that Schindler remained in the ranks of the Nazi Party and still managed to save lives, when he could have abandoned his workers and fled to another country as many protesters did. Though his story may have been met with copious amounts of skepticism after the war, it is a testament to the dignity of humanity that Oskar Schindler slept with the enemy and was willing to sacrifice all that his worldly mind held important to promote the cause of saving lives.

In the end it is no small thing to declare Oskar Schindler a hero and a philanthropist. He was, no doubt, flawed, as we all are in some way, but it is the fact that he rose above his own failings that makes him an exceptional human being. In a world where there was no justice and it was considered a sin to be whatever one’s nature dictated, Schindler had the courage to fight against the growing sentiment of the Nazi mechanism. Hitler sought a world without color, a world without variation, a world without life. He wanted only the perfect Aryan race of robotic humans to inherit and dominate the world, and to achieve this he found it necessary to remove those he considered degenerate. Schindler was able to see past this zealous desire for destruction and do what he knew to be right. He was not the essence of a hero. He was far from it, and that is what makes him truly heroic.