Oskar Schindler is a bit of an enigma and
remains so even after this biography in the form of a novel. As Keneally says, such a medium seems suited to
tell the story of such an elusive and ambiguous character.
The facts at least, are known – how a German
businessman, to all appearances one of many looking to maximise their war
profits on the back of military contracts and interned Jewish labour, contrived
to keep safe over a thousand workers first in his factory in Krakow before then
transporting them wholesale to a new location in Czechoslovakia as the Russian
army crossed into Poland.
The motivation is more difficult to fathom. Readers are left to draw their own
conclusions from the narrative pieced together from information gleaned from
the survivors and their personal recollections and testimonies. It is clear that Schindler is no saint; he
was a womaniser who liked the good life and knew how to grease the palms of the
powerful. But what drove him to use his
charm, money and influence to save the lives of strangers rather than exploit
them to enhance his fortune? Was it a
dislike of the Nazi mind-set and its thuggish proponents or an
anti-establishment streak in his entrepreneurial soul that drove him to undermine,
frustrate and ultimately defy the powers that be?
Keneally provides the evidence – clearly and
largely unemotionally - leaving the verdict to the reader.
Fascinating, tragic and uplifting by turns,
the book provides a rare microcosmic insight into the darkest times in modern
European history.
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