Oskar Schindler is not a man you would link to saving Jewish lives during the World War. He was a Nazi party member who drank, gambled and knew how to bribe. Schindler joined the Nazi Party not because he believed in those beliefs, but rather out of an entrepreneurial motivation. During the Holocaust, Oskar Schindler used the Nazi Party to save the lives of over a thousand Jews. Born on April 28, 1908 in the German province of Zwittau, Moravia, now known as the Czech Republic. This region is more commonly known as the Sudetenland. Schindler attended a German-language school and among his playmates were two sons of a local rabbi. At the age of sixteen he dropped out of school and went to work at his father's agricultural machinery factory. While working for his father he met Emilie and married her in 1928. Schindler's marriage caused a rift between him and his father. He left his father's company and went to work at the Moravian Electric Company as a sales manager. His work took him to Krakow, Poland on business. In 1935 Oskar Schindler joined the pro-Nazi Sudeten German Party. It is believed that he joined the party out of pragmatism and not out of ideal affinity. A year later he collected counterintelligence information for the Abwehr, Germany's military intelligence agency. Thus he was exempted from military service. In 1938 he was arrested by the Czechoslovaks and subsequently freed thanks to the Munich Agreement. Schindler was pardoned when Reich rose through the ranks of the Abwehr. He was then accepted as a full member of the Nazi Party. He traveled to Kraków through black market activity and with bribes secured a formally Jewish-owned enamelware factory, renaming it Emalia. At first less than a quarter of all workers were Jews, by 1942 half of the workers... half the paper... Easy denial. The most important theme in the film is the difference one individual can make. Schindler risked everything and gave everything he had to give this Jewish people a chance. He could have been a ruthless Nazi who only cared about the Aryan race. Schindler didn't just save the lives of 1,000 Jewish victims, he saved generations of families. Without him this family would not have survived. Works Cited "Decades later, 'Schindler's List' still resonates." Philadelphia Inquirer [Philadelphia, PA] September 8, 2013. Biography in context. Network. November 7, 2013. Crowe, David. "Oskar Schindler." Jewish Encyclopedia. Ed.Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. Biography in context. Network. November 7, 2013. "Oskar Schindler." Encyclopedia of World Biography. vol. 18. Detroit: Gale, 1998. Biography in context. Network. November 15. 2013.