War Meditation

World War II, which started at 1939 and ended at 1945, is considered by many the worst event that human history has faced, ever. Besides all the cities reduced to ashes, the human casualties (estimated in millions), and the nuclear disasters at the end; there is one especific fact that was considered a real atrocity. The slavery and concentration camps. It is known that the number of civilian casualties was two times bigger than the military ones; a total of 40 million above the 20 million. From the 60 million deaths, the 10% of them where from The Holocaust. This means that from each 10 deaths, 1 of them was a slave (probably a jew) , that was been slaughtered in forms that many people could not ever imagine. That's why to many people, WWII was considered the apocalypse. The human race was self-destroying. Europe was hell and Adolf Hitler was the devil. But there is light even in the darkest corner. There where bystanders that simply couldn't stand this massacre, so they decided to act; and one of them is Oskar Schindler. If Hitler was the devil, Schindler could be compared to an angel.

Who was Oskar Schindler?

Oskar Schindler was an ethnic German industrialist born in Moravia. Well, let's skip the biography and head to the important information. Schindler saw the war as something profitable, and he owned factories in which weapons and ammunition was produced. When the Germans started pirsuiting the jewish, Oskar and his german speaking Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern obtained 1,100 Jew workers to work for them. First, it was the money that motivated this businessman to use Jews as employees, but all changed with time. Schindler started to feel that he was doing wrong, so he changed the conditions in which the Jews worked; including less hours of work, time to pray and better food. Also, Oskar did alot of ilegal activities, such as buying products for their Schindlerjuden ("Schindler's Jews") in the black market, and bribing German officers to mantain all the Jews that he could afford to. His charms and negotiation habilites made him a very respectable man in his country. After the war, he ended in bankrupt because he spent all his fortune in bribes and goods from the black market to his workers. He survived because of the charity of many Jewish organizations, at least until 1974, when he died with 66 years of age due a liver failure. At the moment of his death, he had no money; the hospital was being payed by the German goverment. 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. This stones have been placed by the families he saved. In the end, he saved around 1200 Jewish lives. Schindler became famous because of a novel called "Schindler's Ark", and because of a film called "Schindler's List". It was directed by Steven Spielberg and won the Academy Award for Best Pitcure/Movie. In the middle of the most catastrophic event ever, there was still hope in some places.

 "I knew the people who worked for me... When you know people, you have to behave towards them like human beings."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Schindlergrave2010.jpg