The Hall of Names containing Pages of Testimony commemorating the millions of Jews who perished in the Holocaust.

Entrance to the museum

Yad Vashem (Hebrew: יד ושם‎‎ ("Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority") is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

The origin of the name is from a Biblical verse: "And to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name (Yad Vashem) that shall not be cut off".^[1]

Located in the western region of Mount Herzl on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem, Yad Vashem is a 180-dunam (180,000 m²) complex containing the Holocaust History Museum; memorial sites, such as the Children's Memorial and the Hall of Remembrance; The Museum of Holocaust Art; sculptures, outdoor commemorative sites such as the Valley of the Communities, a synagogue, archives, a research institute, library, publishing house and an educational center, The International School for Holocaust Studies. Yad Vashem honors non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust, at personal risk, as the "Righteous among the Nations".

Yad Vashem is the second most-visited tourist site in Israel, after the Western Wall. It receives some one million visitors annually. Admission is free.

History[link]

Valley of the Communities

On 9 November 2008, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau was appointed by the Israeli government as Chairman of Yad Vashem to replace the late Tommy Lapid.^[2] The idea of establishing a memorial in the historical Jewish homeland for Jewish victims of the Nazi Holocaust was conceived during World War II, as a response to reports of the mass murder of Jews in Nazi-occupied countries. Yad Vashem was first proposed in September 1942, at a board meeting of the Jewish National Fund, by Mordecai Shenhavi, a member of Kibbutz Mishmar Ha'emek.

In August 1945, the plan was discussed in greater detail at a Zionist meeting in London where it was decided to set up a provisional board of Zionist leaders with David Remez as chairman, Shlomo Zalman Shragai, Baruch Zuckerman, and Shenhavi. In February 1946, Yad Vashem opened an office in Jerusalem and a branch office in Tel Aviv and in June that year, convened its first plenary session. In July 1947, the First Conference on Holocaust Research was held at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, where further plans were made for Yad Vashem. However, the outbreak in May 1948 of the War of Independence, brought almost all Yad Vashem operations to a standstill for two years. In 1953, the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, unanimously passed the Yad Vashem Law, establishing the Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority.

On 9 November 2008, Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau was appointed by the Israeli government as Chairman of Yad Vashem to replace the late Tommy Lapid.^[3]

Location[link]

Yad Vashem train car

The selection of the site on Mount Herzl gave a symbolic message to the new memorial's presentation of the Holocaust. Situated as it was on a site unrelated to Jewish history, the museum sent a message of "rebirth" after destruction. This was in contrast to Israel's first Holocaust museum, the Chamber of the Holocaust, founded in 1948 by the Chief Rabbinate. The latter was deliberately situated on Mount Zion in close proximity to David's Tomb, the symbol of ancient Jewish history and future redemption (through the Messiah, son of David).^[4][5] Thus, the latter museum, whose walls are lined with plaques memorializing over 2,000 Jewish communities destroyed during the Holocaust,^[6][7] portrays the Holocaust as a continuation of the "death and destruction" that plagued Jewish communities throughout Jewish history.^[8]

Overseas visitors[link]

The Eternal Flame

In 1973 the Austrian UN Secretary General, Kurt Waldheim rejected requests to wear a Kippa during a visit to Yad Vashem.^[9]In 2000, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder visited Yad Vashem as a guest of Israeli Premier Ehud Barak and was invited to turn a handle to boost the Eternal Flame. In a much reported diplomatic gaffe he turned the handle the wrong way and extinguished it.^[10]

In January 2008, Yad Vashem hosted US President George W. Bush. Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies held the first ever International Youth Congress on the Holocaust in January 2008. Over 100 young people from 62 countries and five continents gathered for a three-day Youth Congress under the patronage of UNESCO. In March 2008, German Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel, accompanied by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and eight ministers from each government, visited Yad Vashem. A memorial ceremony, with the participation of the Chancellor, the Prime Minister, and the Chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate Avner Shalev, took place in the Hall of Remembrance.

Pope Benedict XVI visited Yad Vashem on 11 May 2009, with the participation of President Shimon Peres and Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin. Similar to the visit of his predecessor Pope John Paul II in 2000, Pope Benedict XVI's visit took place in the Hall of Remembrance at Yad Vashem, where he participated in a memorial ceremony, delivering an address and greeting six Holocaust survivors and a Righteous Among the Nations.

During 2009–2010, Yad Vashem launched websites in Spanish and Russian that joined the existing ones in English, Hebrew, and Persian. Yad Vashem also created dedicated YouTube channels in English, Hebrew, Spanish, Russian and Arabic. Some 11 million visits were recorded on www.yadvashem.org during 2010.

Goals and objectives[link]

• Education:
  • operating the International School for Holocaust Studies;^[11]
  • providing professional development courses for educators both in Israel and throughout the world;
  • developing age-appropriate study programs, curricula and educational materials for both Israeli and foreign schools, in order to teach students of all ages about the Holocaust
  • holding exhibitions about the Holocaust; and
  • teaching about the Holocaust to the general public.
• Documentation:
  • collecting names of Holocaust victims. The Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names currently holds 4 million names of Holocaust victims, all accessible online. Yad Vashem continues its project of collecting names of Jewish victims from historical documents, postwar commemoration projects and individual memories.^[12]
  • collecting photos, documents and resources regarding the Holocaust. The Yad Vashem Archives house some 138 million pages of Holocaust-related documentation and over 400,000 photographs.
  • collecting Pages of Testimony memorializing Jewish victims of the Holocaust,^[13] Yad Vashem has so far collected 2.2 million Pages of Testimony.
  • recording testimonies of survivors. The Oral History Section of the Yad Vashem Archives currently houses some 102,000 audio, video, and written testimonies.
• Commemoration:
  • preserving the memory and names of the six million Jews murdered during the Holocaust and the numerous Jewish communities destroyed during that time; and
  • holding ceremonies of remembrance and commemoration.
• Research and Publications:
  • conducting, encouraging and supporting research regarding the Holocaust;
  • encouraging students and young scholars to research the Holocaust;
  • developing and coordinating symposia, workshops and international conferences and undertaking scholarly projects;
  • publishing research and making it available to the general public; and
  • publishing memoirs, documents, albums and diaries related to the Holocaust.
• Righteous Among the Nations:
  • Honoring non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. Since the 1960s the title of Righteous Among the Nations has been awarded to more than 23,700 individuals.

New museum[link]

View of Jerusalem Forest at the exit of Yad Vashem's Holocaust History Museum.

In 1993, Yad Vashem institute decided to build a larger museum to replace the one built during the 1960s. This was in response to the need to provide a meaningful way to commemorate the Holocaust amid the technological advances of the new millennium, while connecting to younger generations, whose responsibility it will be to pass on the legacy of Holocaust remembrance. Much of the funding was supplied by the producer Stephen Spielberg, following the worldwide success of the motion picture Schindler's List.

The new Holocaust History museum is the largest Holocaust museum in the world. It is carved into the Mount of Remembrance and designed to tell the story of the European Jewish community during the Holocaust. Consisting of a long corridor connected to 10 exhibition halls, each dedicated to a different chapter of the Holocaust, the museum tells the story of the Holocaust from a Jewish perspective. The museum combines the personal stories of 90 Holocaust victims and survivors and presents approximately 2,500 personal items including artwork and letters donated by survivors and others. At the end of the Holocaust History Museum is the Hall of Names, a memorial to the 6 million Jews who perished in the Holocaust. The main hall is composed of two cones: one ten meters high, with a reciprocal well-like cone excavated into the underground rock, its base filled with water. On the upper cone is a display featuring 600 photographs of Holocaust victims and fragments of Pages of Testimony. These are reflected in the water at the bottom of the lower cone, commemorating those victims whose names remain unknown. Surrounding the platform is the circular repository, housing the approximately 2.2 million Pages of Testimony collected to date, with empty spaces for those yet to be submitted—room for six million Pages in all. Attached is a study area with a computerized data bank and where online searches of Holocaust victims' names may be performed on the Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names. Access to the Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names is also available on the Internet at the Yad Vashem website.

Janusz Korczak and the children, memorial

Since the 1950s, Yad Vashem has collected approximately 102,000 audio, video and written testimonies by Holocaust survivors; as the survivors age and are beginning to become less mobile, the program has expanded to visiting survivors in their homes to tape interviews.

On 15 March 2005, the dedication of the new Museum took place. The building was designed by Canadian-Israeli architect, Moshe Safdie. Leaders from 40 states and former Secretary General of the UN Kofi Annan attended the inauguration. President of Israel Moshe Katzav said that the new museum serves as "an important signpost to all of humankind, a signpost that warns how short the distance is between hatred and murder, between racism and genocide."^[14]

Righteous Among the Nations[link]

'Torah', Memorial to the Victims of the Concentration and Extermination Camps Nandor Glid (1924–1997), cast bronze sculpture by Marcelle Swergold

One of Yad Vashem's tasks is to honor non-Jews who risked their lives, liberty or positions to save Jews during the Holocaust. To this end a special independent Commission, headed by a retired Supreme Court Justice, was established. The commission members, including historians, public figures, lawyers and Holocaust survivors, examine and evaluate each case according to a well-defined set of criteria and regulations. The Righteous receive a certificate of honor and a medal and their names are commemorated in the Garden of the Righteous Among the Nations , on the Mount of Remembrance, Yad Vashem. This is an ongoing project that will continue for as long as there are valid requests, substantiated by testimonies or documentation. 449 individuals were recognized during 2010, and as of 2010, more than 23,700 individuals have been recognized as Righteous Among the Nations.

Awards[link]

• In 1973, the Pinkas HaKehillot (Encyclopedia of Jewish Communities) project of Yad Vashem was awarded the Israel Prize, for its special contribution to society and the State.^[15]

• In 2003, Yad Vashem was awarded the Israel Prize, for lifetime achievement and its special contribution to society and the State.^[16][17]

• In September 2007, Yad Vashem received the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord.^[18] The Prince of Asturias Awards is presented in 8 categories. The Award for Concord is bestowed upon the person, persons or institution whose work has made an exemplary and outstanding contribution to mutual understanding and peaceful coexistence amongst men, to the struggle against injustice or ignorance, to the defense of freedom, or whose work has widened the horizons of knowledge or has been outstanding in protecting and preserving mankind's heritage.

• On 25 October 2007, Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev was honored with the Légion d’Honneur for his "extraordinary work on behalf of Holocaust remembrance worldwide." French President Nicolas Sarkozy personally presented Shalev with the award in a special ceremony at the Elysee Palace.

• In 2011 Yad Vashem Chairman Avner Shalev received the City of Jerusalem’s premier award for outstanding lifetime achievement and service to Israel’s capital city.

See also[link]

• List of Israel Prize recipients
• List of Righteous Among the Nations by country
• The Holocaust History Project
• Yad Vashem: Preserving the Past to Ensure the Future

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Yad Vashem

• The official Yad Vashem website

Coordinates: 31°46′27″N 35°10′32″E / 31.77417°N 35.17556°E / 31.77417; 35.17556

Oskar Schindler (28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was an ethnic German industrialist born in Moravia. He is credited with saving over 1,100^[1][2] Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories, which were located in what is now Poland and the Czech Republic respectively.^[3] He is the subject of the novel Schindler's Ark, and the film based on it, Schindler's List.^[4]

Early life and career[link]

Schindler was born on 28 April 1908 into a Sudeten German family in Zwittau, Moravia, Austria-Hungary. His parents, Hans Schindler and Franziska Luser, were divorced when he was 27. Oskar was always very close to his younger sister, Elfriede. Schindler was brought up within the Roman Catholic Church. Although he never formally renounced his religion, Oskar was never more than an indifferent Catholic.^[1] After school he worked as a commercial salesman.

On 6 March 1928, Schindler married Emilie Pelzl (1907–2001), daughter of a wealthy Sudeten German farmer from Maletein. A pious Catholic, Emilie had received most of her education in a nearby monastery.^[5] During the Great Depression, Oskar changed jobs several times. He also tried starting various businesses, but always went bankrupt. He joined the separatist Sudeten German Party in 1935. Though officially a citizen of Czechoslovakia, Schindler also became a spy for the Abwehr, then commanded by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.^[1] He was convicted of espionage and imprisoned by the Czechoslovakian government in July 1938, but after the Munich Agreement, he was released as a political prisoner. In 1939 Schindler joined the Nazi Party. One source contends that he also continued to work for Canaris and the Abwehr, paving the way for the Wehrmacht's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939.^[6]

World War II[link]

Part of a series on
The Holocaust
Part of: German history and Jewish history
Responsibility Nazi Germany People Major Perpetrators Adolf Hitler Heinrich Himmler Reinhard Heydrich Adolf Eichmann Odilo Globocnik Theodor Eicke Richard Glücks Ernst Kaltenbrunner Rudolf Höss Christian Wirth Joseph Goebbels Organizations Nazi Party Gestapo Schutzstaffel (SS) Sturmabteilung (SA) Verfügungstruppe (VT) Wehrmacht Collaborators during World War II Nazi ideologues
Early policies Racial policy Nazi eugenics Nuremberg Laws Haavara Agreement Madagascar Plan Forced euthanasia
Victims Jews in Europe Jews in Germany Romani people (Gypsies) Poles Soviet POWs Slavs in Eastern Europe Homosexuals People with disabilities Serbs Freemasons Jehovah's Witnesses
Ghettos Białystok Budapest Kovno Kraków Łódź Lublin Lwów Minsk Riga Vilna Warsaw Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland List of selected ghettos
Atrocities Pogroms Kristallnacht Bucharest Dorohoi Iaşi Jedwabne Kaunas Lviv (Lvov) Tykocin Vel' d'Hiv Wąsosz Einsatzgruppen Babi Yar Bydgoszcz Częstochowa Kamianets-Podilskyi Ninth Fort Odessa Piaśnica Ponary Rumbula Erntefest "Final Solution" Wannsee Conference Operation Reinhard Holocaust trains Extermination camps End of World War II Wola massacre Death marches
Camps Nazi extermination camps Auschwitz-Birkenau Bełżec Chełmno Jasenovac Majdanek Maly Trostenets Sobibor Treblinka Nazi concentration camps Bergen-Belsen Bogdanovka Buchenwald Dachau Gonars (Italy) Gross-Rosen Herzogenbusch Janowska Kaiserwald Mauthausen-Gusen Neuengamme Rab Ravensbrück Sachsenhausen Sajmište Salaspils Stutthof Theresienstadt Uckermark Warsaw Transit and collection camps Belgium Breendonk Mechelen France Gurs Drancy Italy Bolzano Netherlands Amersfoort Westerbork Divisions SS-Totenkopfverbände Concentration Camps Inspectorate Politische Abteilung Sanitätswesen Extermination methods Inmate identification Gas van Gas chamber Extermination through labor Human medical experimentation Inmate disposal of victims
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Resources The Destruction of the European Jews Functionalism versus intentionalism
Remembrance Days of remembrance Memorials and museums
v t e

As an opportunistic businessman, Schindler was one of many who sought to profit from the German invasion of Poland in 1939. He gained ownership from a bankruptcy court of an idle enamelware factory in Kraków,^[3] named Pierwsza Małopolska Fabryka Naczyń Emaliowanych i Wyrobów Blaszanych "Rekord",^[7] which he renamed Deutsche Emaillewaren-Fabrik or DEF (location).^[8] With the help of his German-speaking Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern,^[3] Schindler obtained around 1,000 Jewish forced labourers to work there.^[1]

Schindler soon adapted his lifestyle to his income. He became a well-respected guest at Nazi SS elite parties, having easy chats with high-ranking SS officers, often for his benefit.^[8] Initially Schindler may have been motivated by money, as Jewish labour cost less, but later he began shielding his workers without regard for cost. He would, for instance, claim that certain unskilled workers were essential to the factory.^[3]

While witnessing a 1943 raid on the Kraków Ghetto, where soldiers were used to round up the inhabitants for shipment to the concentration camp at Płaszów, Schindler was appalled by the murder of many of the Jews who had been working for him.^[8] He was a very persuasive individual, and after the raid, increasingly used all of his skills to protect his Schindlerjuden ("Schindler's Jews"), as they came to be called. Schindler went out of his way to take care of the Jews who worked at DEF, often calling on his legendary charm and ingratiating manner to help his workers get out of difficult situations.^[8] Once, says author Eric Silver in The Book of the Just, "Two Gestapo men came to his office and demanded that he hand over a family of five who had bought forged Polish identity papers. 'Three hours after they walked in,' Schindler said, 'two drunk Gestapo men reeled out of my office without their prisoners and without the incriminating documents they had demanded'".^[9] The special status of his factory ("business essential to the war effort") became the decisive factor for Schindler's efforts to support his Jewish workers. Whenever "Schindler Jews" were threatened with deportation, he claimed exemptions for them. Wives, children, and even handicapped persons were shown to be necessary mechanics and metalworkers.^[3]

In the factory itself, Jewish workers were treated civilly, with none of the "shouting, abuse and random killing" that was going on in the Płaszów camp next-door. The Jews were able to pray in a minyan daily, and gathered at night to learn Chumash and exchange words of Torah and stories of Gedolim. At the close of Shabbat, the workers gathered for Shalosh Seudos and sang zemirot (Shabbat-table songs), said words of Torah, and told stories of tzaddikim.^[10]

Schindler's factory at Kraków in 2006
50°02′51″N 19°57′42″E / 50.047397°N 19.961799°E / 50.047397; 19.961799 (Site of Schindler's factory at Kraków, Poland)

Schindler's factory at Brněnec in 2004
49°37′40″N 16°31′25″E / 49.627752°N 16.523733°E / 49.627752; 16.523733 (Site of Schindler's factory at Brněnec, Czech Republic)

Schindler was arrested three times on suspicion of black market activities and complicity in embezzlement, as well as breaking the Nuremberg Laws by kissing a Jewish girl. Amon Göth, the commandant of the Płaszów camp, and other SS guards used Jewish property (such as money, jewellery, and works of art) for themselves, although according to law, it belonged to the Reich. Schindler arranged the sale of such items on the black market. None of his arrests led to a trial, primarily because he bribed government officials to avoid further investigation.^[1][3]

As the Red Army drew nearer to Auschwitz concentration camp and the other easternmost concentration camps, the SS began evacuating the remaining prisoners westward. Amon Göth's personal secretary, Mietek Pemper, alerted Schindler to the Nazis' plans to close all factories not directly involved with the war effort, including Schindler's enamelware facility.^[11] Pemper also persuaded and encouraged Schindler to switch production from enamelware to anti-tank grenades in an effort to save Schindler's Jewish workers.^[11][12] Tipped off to the factory closure, Schindler persuaded the SS officials to allow him to move his 1,200 Jewish workers to Brünnlitz (Czech: Brněnec), in the German-speaking Sudetenland, thus sparing them from certain death in the gas chambers. Mietek Pemper further aided Schindler's efforts by compiling and typing the list of 1,200 Jews—1,000 of Schindler's workers and 200 other inmates—who were sent to Brünnlitz in October 1944.^[11][12]

In Brünnlitz, Schindler gained another former Jewish factory, which was scheduled to produce hand grenades and parts for V2 rockets. It is unclear how much armament was actually produced there; Schindler and some of the workers claimed in the immediate post-war years that there had been no production that would have been useful to the German war effort, and even that some or all of the output had been deliberately faulty product.

After the war[link]

Schindler and his wife fled to Austria's U.S. zone, escaping prosecution by dressing in prison clothes and carrying a letter testifying to their heroic actions.^[13] By the end of the war, Schindler had spent his entire fortune on bribes and black-market purchases of supplies for his workers. Virtually destitute, he moved briefly to Regensburg and later Munich, but did not prosper in postwar Germany. In fact, he was reduced to receiving assistance from Jewish organizations. Eventually, Schindler emigrated to Argentina in 1948, where he went bankrupt. He left his wife Emilie in 1957 and returned to Germany in 1958, where he had a series of unsuccessful business ventures.^[3] Schindler settled down in a small apartment at Am Hauptbahnhof Nr. 4 in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany and tried again – with help from a Jewish organization – to establish a cement factory. This, too, went bankrupt in 1961. His business partners cancelled their partnership. In 1968 he began receiving a small pension from the West German government.

Commemorative plaque at Goettingstrasse 30, Hildesheim

In 1971, Schindler moved to live with friends at Goettingstrasse Nr. 30 in Hildesheim. Due to a heart complaint he was taken to the Saint Bernward Hospital in Hildesheim on 12 September 1974, where he died on 9 October 1974, at the age of 66. At the time of his death, he was surrounded by friends and family.^{[14][not in citation given]} He died penniless;^[15] the costs for his stay in the hospital were paid from social welfare of the city of Hildesheim.^[16][17]

Schindler's grave

Schindler wanted to be buried in Jerusalem, as he said, "My children are here".^[15] After a Requiem Mass, Schindler was buried at the Catholic Franciscans' cemetery^[18] on Mount Zion, the only member of the Nazi Party to be honoured in this way.^[3] A sign at the entrance to the cemetery directs visitors "To Oskar Schindler's Grave".

Side view of Schindler's grave, piled with small stones left by Jewish visitors

Schindler's grave is located on the mountainside below Zion Gate and the Old City walls. Stones placed on top of the grave are a sign of gratitude from Jewish visitors, according to Jewish tradition, although Schindler himself was not Jewish. On his grave, the Hebrew inscription reads: "Righteous among the Nations", an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis. The German inscription reads: "The Unforgettable Lifesaver of 1200 Persecuted Jews"

No one knows what Schindler's motives were. He was quoted as saying "I knew the people who worked for me... When you know people, you have to behave towards them like human beings."^[19]

The writer Herbert Steinhouse, who interviewed Schindler in 1948 at the behest of some of the surviving Schindlerjuden (Schindler's Jews), wrote:

"Oskar Schindler's exceptional deeds stemmed from just that elementary sense of decency and humanity that our sophisticated age seldom sincerely believes in. A repentant opportunist saw the light and rebelled against the sadism and vile criminality all around him. The inference may be disappointingly simple, especially for all amateur psychoanalysts who would prefer the deeper and more mysterious motive that may, if it is true, still lie unprobed and unappreciated. But an hour with Oskar Schindler encourages belief in the simple answer."^[3]

Legacy[link]

[edit] Schindler's List (Schindler's Ark)

Schindler's story, retold by Holocaust survivor Poldek Pfefferberg, was the basis for Thomas Keneally's book Schindler's Ark (the novel was published in America as Schindler's List), which was adapted into the 1993 movie Schindler's List by Steven Spielberg. In the film, he is played by Liam Neeson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal. The film won seven Oscars, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. The prominence of Spielberg's film introduced Schindler into popular culture. As the film is the sole source of most people's knowledge of Schindler, he is generally perceived much as Spielberg's film depicts him: as a man who was instinctively driven by profit-driven amorality, but who at some point made a silent but conscious decision that preserving the lives of his Jewish employees was imperative, even if requiring massive payments to induce Nazis to turn a blind eye.

Other film treatments have included a 1983 British television documentary produced by Thames Television, narrated by Sir Dirk Bogarde entitled, Schindler: The Documentary (released in the US in 1994 as Schindler: The Real Story),^[20] and a 1998 A&E Biography special, Oskar Schindler: The Man Behind the List.^[21]

Schindler's suitcase[link]

In late 1999 a suitcase belonging to Schindler was discovered, containing over 7,000 photographs and documents, including the list of Schindler's Jewish workers. The document, on his enamelware factory's letterhead, had been provided to the SS stating that the named workers were "essential" employees. Friends of Schindler found the suitcase in the attic of a house in Hildesheim, where he had been staying at the time of his death. The friends took the suitcase to Stuttgart, where its discovery was reported by a newspaper, the Stuttgarter Zeitung. The contents of the suitcase, including the list of the names of those he had saved and the text of his farewell speech before leaving his Jewish workers in 1945, are now at the Holocaust museum of Yad Vashem in Israel.^[22]

Schindler's enamel factory in 2009

List of Schindlerjuden[link]

In early April 2009, a second list was discovered at the State Library of New South Wales, Australia by workers combing through boxes of materials collected by author Thomas Keneally. The 13-page document, yellow and fragile, was filed between research notes and original newspaper clippings. This list, given to Keneally in 1980 by Leopold Pfefferberg, who was listed as worker number 173, differs slightly from the other list, but is nonetheless considered to be genuine and authentic. It is believed that several lists were made during the war as the protected population changed. This particular list, dated 18 April 1945, was given to Keneally by Pfefferberg when he was persuading Keneally to write Schindler's story. In the last months of the war, German Nazi camps stepped up their extermination efforts. This list is believed to have saved the lives of 801 people from death in the gas chambers. It was this list, taken with the surrounding events of the time, that inspired Keneally to write his novel.^[23]

See also[link]

• List of individuals and groups assisting Jews during the Holocaust
• Righteous among the Nations
• Yad Vashem Righteous among the Nations
• List of Righteous among the Nations by country
• Raoul Wallenberg
• Necdet Kent
• Abdol Hossein Sardari
• Chiune Sugihara
• John Rabe
• Leo Rosner
• Ángel Sanz Briz

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Oskar Schindler

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oskar Schindler

• The Schindler Story
• Biggest online gallery of images of Oskar Schindler's Factory in Kraków
• Oskar Schindler's Factory info and tours
• Oskar and Emilie Schindler – Righteous Among the Nations – Yad Vashem
• Oskar Schindler's list at Auschwitz.dk
• Aerial Evidence for Schindler's List
• Holocaust Rescuers Bibliography
• Schindler's List (film) bibliography via UC Berkeley
• Pictures of Oskar Schindler's suitcase
• Find-A-Grave profile for Oskar Schindler
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum – Oskar Schindler
• Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Helen Jonas from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Interview with Mimi Reinhard, Schindler's secretary

Pius XII
File:Ida10-1.jpg
Papacy began	2 March 1939
Papacy ended	9 October 1958
Predecessor	Pius XI
Successor	John XXIII
Orders
Ordination	2 April 1899
Consecration	13 May 1917 by Pope Benedict XV
Created Cardinal	16 December 1929
Personal details
Birth name	Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli
Born	(1876-03-02)2 March 1876 Rome, Kingdom of Italy
Died	9 October 1958(1958-10-09) (aged 82) Castel Gandolfo, Italy
Motto	Opus Justitiae Pax (The work of justice and peace)
Signature
Coat of arms
Other Popes named Pius

The Venerable Pope Pius XII (Latin: Pius PP. XII; Italian: Pio XII), born Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli (2 March 1876 – 9 October 1958), reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958.

Before election to the papacy, Pacelli served as secretary of the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, papal nuncio and Cardinal Secretary of State, in which capacity he worked to conclude treaties with European and Latin American nations, most notably the Reichskonkordat with Nazi Germany. The concordat of 1933 which saw the self-destruction of the Centre (Catholic) Party, on the orders of the Holy See, and Pius' leadership of the Catholic Church during World War II, including his "decision to stay silent in public about the fate of the Jews",^[1] remain the subject of controversy.

After the war Pius XII advocated peace and reconciliation, including lenient policies towards Axis and Axis-satellite nations. The Church experienced severe persecution and mass deportations of Catholic clergy in the Eastern Bloc. In light of his overt involvement in Italian politics – anyone who voted for a Communist candidate in the 1948 elections was threatened with automatic excommunication – Pius XII became known as a staunch opponent of the Italian Communist Party. Pius XII explicitly invoked ex cathedra papal infallibility with the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in his 1950 Apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus.^[2] His magisterium includes almost 1,000 addresses and radio broadcasts. His forty-one encyclicals include Mystici Corporis, the Church as the Body of Christ; Mediator Dei on liturgy reform; and Humani generis on the Church's positions on theology and evolution. He eliminated the Italian majority in the College of Cardinals in 1946.

Early life[link]

Eugenio Marìa Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli was born on 2 March 1876 in Rome into a family of intense Catholic piety with a history of ties to the papacy (the "Black Nobility"). His parents were Filippo Pacelli (1837–1916) and Virginia (née Graziosi) Pacelli (1844–1920). His grandfather, Marcantonio Pacelli, had been Under-Secretary in the Papal Ministry of Finances^[3] and then Secretary of the Interior under Pope Pius IX from 1851–70 and helped found the Vatican's newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano in 1861.^[4] His cousin, Ernesto Pacelli, was a key financial advisor to Pope Leo XIII; his father, Filippo Pacelli, a Franciscan tertiary,^[5] was the dean of the Sacra Rota Romana; and his brother, Francesco Pacelli, became a lay canon lawyer and the legal advisor to Pius XI, in which role he negotiated the Lateran Treaty in 1929, the pact with Benito Mussolini, bringing an end to the Roman Question.

Eugenio Pacelli at the age of six in 1882

Together with his brother Francesco and his two sisters, Giuseppina and Elisabetta, he grew up in the centre of Rome. Having attended a kindergarten run by two nuns, and then a private Catholic elementary school, in two rooms of a building close to the Piazza Venezia,^[6] by the age of ten he was enrolled at the Liceo Ennio Quirino Visconti Institute. This was a state school situated in the Collegio Romano, former site of the Jesuit university in Rome, and was animated by a generally anti-Catholic and anticlerical spirit.^[7] He was an altar boy at the Chiesa Nuova and his preferred play as a youth was to act out the celebration of Mass in his bedroom. One year he played out the entire Holy Week ceremonies. He liked music, particularly Beethoven, J.S. Bach, Mozart and Mendelssohn, and read Dante, Alessandro Manzoni and Cicero. His favourite spiritual reading at this time was Thomas à Kempis's Imitation of Christ and other religious reading included St. Augustine and the work of the seventeenth century French bishop Bossuet. Bossuet remained an influence throughout his life.^[8]

In 1894, aged 18, Pacelli began his theology studies at the prestigious Tridentine Collegio Capranica Seminary, and in November of the same year, registered to take a philosophy course at the Jesuit Gregoriana University. At the end of the first academic year however, in the summer of 1895, he dropped out of both the Capranica and the Gregorian University. According to his sister Elisabetta, the food at the Capranica was to blame.^[9] Having received a special dispensation he continued his studies from home under the faculty of the Seminarium Romanum located in the Palazzo Sant'Appollinaire, later the Lateran University. From 1895–96, he studied philosophy at University of Rome La Sapienza. At home he wore his soutane and Roman collar throughout the day and continued to be influenced by Father Giuseppe Lais, an Oratorian priest, a figure who had watched over Pacelli's religious progress since the age of eight. In 1899 he completed his education in "Sacred Theology" with a doctoral degree awarded on the basis of a short dissertation and an oral examination in Latin.^[10]

Church career[link]

Priest and Monsignor[link]

Pacelli on the day of his ordination, 2 April 1899;apart from his post-ordination studies, the young priest did some part-time work in the field of pastoral care-spiritual counsellor to pupils of the Cenacle Convent in Rome, as well as a regular visitor to the Convent of the Assumption. These duties encompassed the only pastoral work he performed during his entire career in the Church.^[11]

While all other candidates from the Rome diocese were ordained in the Basilica of St. John Lateran,^[12] Pacelli was ordained a priest on Easter Sunday, 2 April 1899, alone in the private oratory of an auxiliary bishop of Rome, by Bishop Francesco di Paola Cassetta, vice-regent of Rome and a family friend. Pacelli received his first assignment as a curate at Chiesa Nuova.^[13] In 1901 he was brought into the Vatican bureaucracy and entered the Congregation for Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs, a sub-office of the Vatican Secretariat of State. Monsignor Pietro Gasparri, the recently appointed undersecretary at the Department of Extraordinary Affairs, had underscored his proposal to Pacelli to work in the 'Vatican's equivalent of the Foreign office' by highlighting the 'necessity of defending the Church from the onslaughts of secularism and liberalism throughout Europe.'^[11] Pacelli became an apprendista, an apprentice, in Gasparri's department. In January 1901 he was also chosen, by Pope Leo XIII himself, according to an official account, to deliver condolences on behalf of the Vatican to Edward VII of the UK after the death of Queen Victoria.^[14]

The Serbian Concordat, 24 June 1914. Present for the Vatican were Cardinal Merry del Val and next to him, Monsignor Eugenio Pacelli. Pacelli had negotiated and drafted the document over the previous eighteen months. Cardinal Merry del Val remarked, 'If we say that we cannot trust the Serbs, all the more reason for pinning them down with a concordat' – "an ominous foreshadowing of the argument employed by Pacelli to justify the Reich Concordat".^[15]

By 1904 Pacelli received his doctorate. The theme of his thesis was the nature of concordats and the function of canon law when a concordat falls into abeyance. Promoted to the position of minutante, he prepared digests of reports that had been sent to the Secretariat from all over the world and in the same year became a papal chamberlain. In 1905 he received the title domestic prelate.^[13] From 1904 until 1916, he assisted Cardinal Pietro Gasparri in his codification of canon law with the Department of Extraordinary Ecclesiastical Affairs.^[16] Canon law, the body of internal laws of the Catholic Church, had gathered over centuries in a multitude of decrees, rules, and regulations. The decision to create a code, rather than a compilation or collection of laws or canons, involved "abstraction, fitting laws to succinct formulae divorced from historical and social origins"; under Pius X's direction, the Code of Canon Law sought to create "conformity, centralization, discipline". John Cornwell: " the text, together with the Anti-Modernist Oath, became the means by which the Holy See was to establish and sustain the new, unequal, and unprecedented power relationship that had arisen between the papacy and the Church. Gaspari and Pacelli were its principal architects. The task was to absorb Pacelli for thirteen years."^[17]