Fact Vs Fiction: Schindler's List

In the movie, Oskar Schindler’s wife, Emilie is only present in a few scenes. Highlighting Oskar’s troubled personality, Emilie only agrees to stay in Krakow with the German industrialist if he promises he won’t commit adultery. The following scene shows Emilie boarding a train back to Germany.

While Oskar and his wife’s marriage wasn’t the most stable, ultimately ending in 1958, Emilie played a bigger part in the events of the rescuing of the Jews than portrayed in the film.

Emilie was present with her husband throughout the majority of his time managing factories in Krakow and Brnenec, Czechoslovakia. When Oskar began running out of money and feared the fate for his Jewish staff, Emilie began selling her possessions to supplement the factory’s income.

Later on in Czechoslovakia, Emilie dealt more on the black market and provided more food for the Jewish workers, and even opened a secret sanatorium in the camp. She traded for medicine and began aiding the sick and malnourished Jews under Schindler’s roof.

Maurice Markheim, one of the thousand-plus Schindlerjuden said, ‘behind the man, there is the woman, and I believe she was the great human being.’

In 1994, both Emilie and Oskar were honoured in receiving the Righteous Among the Nations award from Yad Vashem. It is a shame Emilie's role was so downplayed in the movie.