Schindler's Jews: Do they really exist today?

There have been many stories surrounding the horrific incidents of the Holocaust. The people of Jewish descent fell prey to the massacre for years before and during the World War II at the hands of the Nazis. A group of survivors that could escape were called the Schindler's Jews. You might wonder how they escaped the Nazi atrocities and why they are called Schindler's Jews. Before diving into the answers, let us look back at the Holocaust, the most daunting and brutal historical period that humanity witnessed.  

The Holocaust  
The Holocaust was a systemic and state-sponsored killing of six million Jewish people by the Nazis during World War II, 1941.  The Nazis, headed by the Adolf Hitler, aimed to exterminate the Jews from Germany first and then across Europe. But why?  

Due to ideological and religious differences, Nazi Germany wanted to eliminate the Jews. They believed that Aryans were the superior race and should be the only ones to survive and rule the world. So, they resorted to what would be remembered as the biggest genocide in history, the Holocaust. They began with executing German and then other European Jews through various mass killings, shootings, gassing, working to death, medical experiments and oppression.  

The gas chambers  
Between 1941 and 1943, the Nazis started a mission to execute more than two million Jews. They conducted mass murders under the code name Operation Reinhard, named after Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking German police official of the Nazi era. At least 1.75 million Jews were killed this way. Three killing centres were established for this purpose at Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka, in Poland. These were all in the territories occupied by the Nazi army. Operation Reinhard marked the beginning of deadliest phase of Nazi Germany’s genocide mission against Jews. Lakhs of Jews were trapped in gas chambers, where they died of suffocation because of the toxic carbon monoxide gas fumes released in these chambers. The gas was produced using motor car engines. However, in 1943, the operation was terminated, and the camps and chambers were disassembled.   

Oskar Schindler: Hope amidst the massacre 
When the Jews had no hope, a man named Oskar Schindler somehow rescued 1098 of them from the massacre. Schindler, born on April 28, 1908, in Hungary, was a German Catholic industrialist who, along with his wife, saved the Jews from mass murderers. After Germany invaded Poland, he moved to Krakow and took ownership of two former Jew-owned factories that produce enamel kitchenware. He then started another factory in Zablocie which became a safe haven for around 900 Jewish workers, that otherwise would have perished at the nearby Plaszow labour camp.  

Schindler gave the Jews jobs in his factory. His factory used to supply to the German army. When in 1944, his factory was decommissioned, he requested to have his factory moved to Brunnlitz in Czechoslovakia, a place close to his hometown. During this time, Schindler and his partners created a list comprising Jews deemed fit to work in his factory. These people were transferred to the facility in Brunnlitz. He transferred three hundred Jew men from Gross-Rosen camp and three hundred women from Auschwitz camp. This is how Oskar Schindler saved thousands of Jews from the clutches of the Nazis.  

Schindler's Jews do exist today 
The people saved by Schindler later came to be known as Schindler's Jews. These people, saved from being sent to the death camps, survived the wars. In 1945, when World War II ended, Schindler and his wife fled from Germany. They settled in Argentina with several of the Jewish families they saved. But do the Schindler's Jews exist today? Yes, many of them are still alive, a notable name being Eva Lavi, the youngest Schindler's list survivor. As of 2012, an estimated 8,500 descendants of the Schindler's Jews live across the United States, Israel and other countries. 

Quick Fact: Famous Hollywood director Steven Spielberg made a movie named Schindler's List, which released in 1993. It starred Liam Neeson as Oskar Schindler and received critical acclaim for depicting the Holocaust, Nazi Germany, and Schindler's quest to save the Jews from execution.