Top 10 Schindler's Factory Facts That You Must Know

The Jewish workers at Schindler's factory received larger food rations than workers in other forced-labor factories. However, there were still quite a few difficulties present at the factory. The conditions of working were quite brutal, particularly at the enamel furnaces and ladles with sulfuric acid, which mainly the women workers came in direct contact with. Other challenges included the cold and even lice epidemics, which resulted in dysentery and even typhus at times.

Established back in the year 1937, the former tin metal factory in Krakow, Schindler's Factory was turned into a museum in 2010. The permanent exhibition, 'Krakow - during the occupation 1939-1945', depicts the history of Krakow and its Polish and Jewish residents during World War II, using everyday objects, newspapers, personal documents, and other artifacts.

Schindler's Factory primarily produced metal items and enamelware. During World War II, Oskar Schindler realized it was important to keep the factory functional so as to be able to rescue the Jews employed in the factory from concentration camps. In order to achieve this, Schindler started producing ammunition shells as well. This ensured that Schindler's factory was listed as an essential part of the war effort and the Jewish workers were also deemed essential to the factory.

Krakow's Jews who survived the ghetto's liquidation in 1943 were relocated to Plaszow concentration camp in 1943. Then, in January 1945, Schindler applied for a license to establish a sub-camp of the Plaszow camp on his factory's grounds. He argued that his workers had to travel more than ten kilometers from the camp to the factory every day. Increased efficiency at the factory would be achieved by transporting them there. His arguments and bribes secured his strategy's success.

The Australian author, Thomas Keneally, published the book Schindler's Ark in the year 1983. This book came as a result of extensive research and several interviews that were conducted with the surviving Schindlerjuden. *This book is not only a Booker Prize-winning historical non-fiction novel, but it also inspired the well-known film *Schindler's List by Steven Spielberg, made ten years later in the year 1993.

Oskar Schindler is said to have prepared lists containing a list of names of over 1,000 Jewish workers who were then employed in his factory. This list is what inspired the film title "Schindler's List". In April 2009, workers sifting through Thomas Keneally's archives at the State Library of New South Wales stumbled upon a carbon copy of one version of the list.