Oskar Schindler - Deutsche Emaillewaren-Fabrik - June 2013

Oskar Schindler

Oskar Schindler arrived to Krakow hot on the heels of the German invasion in September 1939. As a member of the Nazi party and an agent of the German military intelligence he managed to appropriate the factory which had been set up by a group of Jewish businessmen in 1937. This was as a result of taking advantage of the German occupation program to “Aryanize” and “Germanize” Jewish-owned and Polish-owned businesses in the so-called General Government (Generalgouvernement).

Krakow’s two Jewish proprietors who became dependent on Schindler, Abraham Bankier and Samuel Wiener, provided him with necessary capital. The factory originally known under its Polish name as Fabryka Naczyn Emaliowanych i Wyrobow Blaszanych ‘Rekord’ was renamed Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik (DEF). Under Schindler’s control the plant at 4 Lipowa street continued to produce cookware and varied metal vessels, primarily for the German army. He accomplished ambitious plans of the rapid expansion of production facilities. Schindler also succeeded in launching a munitions division so his factory was able to contribute directly to the Third Reich’s war effort as supplier of cartridge cases and fuses for bombs and artillery shells. He reduced costs by replacing the original Polish staff with cheap labor from the Krakow Ghetto the Nazis organized not far from Schindler’s factory. When Germans liquidated the ghetto in 1943 and moved the remaining Jews to the Plazow Concentration camp. Schindler opened its branch on the premises of his factory complete with barbed-wire fences and watchtowers.

Oskar Schindler with his Polish staff before moving to Brunnlitz, 1944

In the face of the Soviet Red Army's advances Schindler relocated, with the blessing of the German authorities, his munitions business and its workforce in the late 1944 to the branch of Gross-Rosen Concentration Camp in Bohemia’s Brunnlitz.

Though classified as an armaments factory, the Brünnlitz plant produced just one wagon load of live ammunition in just under eight months of operation. By presenting bogus production figures, Schindler justified the existence of the sub-camp as an armaments factory and thus facilitated the survival of over 1,200 Jews, sparing them the horrors and brutality of conventional camp life. Schindler left Brünnlitz only on May 9, 1945, the day that Soviet troops liberated the camp.

The factory today

Krakow’s Oskar Schindler's Factory of Enameled Vessels ‘Emalia’ has been turned into a modern museum devoted to the wartime experiences in Krakow under the five-year Nazi occupation during the World War II. The museum takes up the sprawling administration building of the defunct plant at 4 Lipowa street, in the city’s grim industrial district of Zablocie on the right bank of Wisla river. Ingenious exhibitions combine period artifacts, photos and documents with multimedia and set-piece arrangements in an attempt to create a full-immersion experience.

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