From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
David Crowe devoted seven years, conducted scores of interviews and did research on four continents in order to write the definitive biography of Oskar Schindler. That's the good news. The bad news is that this definitive account is buried in a massive text. Crowe would have been served by a good editor, one with a relentless red pencil.Schindler, a man with many flaws, risked his life and his fortune to save more Jews during the Holocaust than anyone else did. While the young Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg saved a larger number of Jews, he had the assistance of an entire team of people and the financial support of American Jews. In contrast, Schindler had only the assistance of his wife, Emilie. Moreover, Schindler performed his heroic deeds only a short distance from Auschwitz.Schindler's road to becoming the man who rescued almost 1,100 people was hardly predictable. Born in the Sudetenland, the area of Czechoslovakia that was home to a large German population and on which Hitler had designs, Schindler spied for the Abwehr, the German army's espionage unit. He helped pave the way for Germany's 1939 dismemberment of Czechoslovakia.Shortly after Germany invaded Poland, Schindler showed up in Krakow with one intention: to make money. He bought a Jewish-owned factory for a small fraction of its original worth and then contracted with the SS for Jewish workers. A lackluster businessman, Schindler let knowledgeable Jews run the factory while he wined, dined and bribed German officials.How did a man of questionable morals whose fortune was essentially made by stealing from Jews become one of the Holocaust's most-heralded rescuers? The path to Yad Vashem, the Israeli memorial to the Holocaust in Jerusalem, is lined on both sides by trees planted for "Righteous Gentiles," non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust. One can easily spot Schindler's tree because hundreds of thousands of people have worn down the ground around it as they have come to pay homage to this man.As the Germans moved from ghettoization to murder, Schindler -- revolted by this development -- was transformed from self-interested shady, entrepreneur to fierce defender of his workers. Crowe, a professor at Elon University and the author of a history of the Gypsies, meticulously documents this transformation. Schindler, the former German spy, became a courier for Jewish aid organizations. He helped these organizations supply Jews with money, food and medicine, and transmitted important information about the gassings in Auschwitz.In contrast to the impression given by Steven Spielberg in "Schindler's List," Crowe discovered that the famous list was not compiled by Schindler but by one of his Jewish administrators, Marcel Goldberg. There is, Crowe reveals, a seamy side to this story. Aware that inclusion on the list could mean the difference between life and death, Jews bribed Goldberg to get themselves on it. In certain cases, entire families were listed, while people of lesser means were dispatched to Auschwitz and other camps.Schindler did not create the list, but, motivated by a deep sense of compassion for these people and revulsion at the Germans' actions, he did feel responsible for keeping these people alive, particularly during the harrowing final months of the war. When his female workers were transported to Auschwitz, he fought to have them released. As the situation in Krakow deteriorated, he moved his factory to Czechoslovakia. By so doing, he saved the lives of his 1,100 workers. Using his own funds, he kept them relatively well fed and even managed to find medication for them. Emilie played a crucial role during these harrowing winter months. She personally nursed the Jews and, working with her husband, managed to procure desperately needed medical supplies. Many "Schindler Jews" (as Jews rescued by Schindler began to call themselves after the war) credit her with ensuring their survival.Schindler's saga did not end with Germany's defeat. After the Holocaust, Yad Vashem initially refused to honor him as a Righteous Gentile. How, it wondered, could it balance his membership in the Nazi Party with his efforts to save Jews? Those Jews whose factory he had expropriated protested to Yad Vashem that he acquired the considerable sums he spent to save his workers through the Aryanization of Jewish property and the use of slave labor. They tried to take legal action against him. Other Schindler Jews objected vehemently, arguing that, but for his actions, they would not have survived.Schindler's postwar business efforts were complete disasters. Without the support he received from a well-respected Jewish aid organization, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, he and Emilie would have been destitute. Many of his supporters were infuriated when he gambled away substantial sums. Others, willing to ignore his personal shortcomings, shrugged it off with "that's Oskar."This book, despite containing fascinating information, is marred by its completely undisciplined nature. It contains scads of ancillary -- and sometimes hardly even that -- details on an array of other topics. Do we need to know all about films that were not made about Schindler? Does Crowe have to tell us that his interviews with Schindler Jews "touched [him] deeply"? Why does he feel compelled to include not just the life story of a young American GI who helped some Schindler Jews immediately after the war but also what was said about him at the time of his death? Moreover, Crowe repeatedly fails to follow a chronological thread. Early in the book, when he is discussing Schindler's expropriation of the Krakow factory, Crowe goes into a discourse on a lawsuit that was not filed until the 1960s. While this is certainly part of the story, he would have served his readers well by waiting until his discussion of postwar developments to tell it. What initially is distracting becomes, by the end of this massive tome, maddening.Nothing in Schindler's behavior before or after the war would have led one to identify him as a hero of such tremendous proportions. At a crucial moment, he more than rose to the occasion. He surpassed it and, as a result, saved more than a thousand people. His actions are testimony to the fact that, contrary to what many Germans claimed, there was something that people could have done. Oskar Schindler did it.Reviewed by Deborah E. Lipstadt Copyright 2005, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* Schindler is known best for the portrayal of him in Steven Spielberg's film Schindler's List, which was, of course, based on Thomas Keneally's novel of the same name. Schindler was a German who risked his life and his fortune to save 1,100 Jews and provide hundreds of other Jews who worked for him with a quality of life that enabled many of them to survive the Holocaust. In researching this definitive biography over a seven-year period, Crowe interviewed and corresponded with many of Schindler's Jews; discovered a vast collection of his private papers and letters; found the Czech secret police and Gestapo files on Schindler documenting his involvement as an operative in Nazi Germany's military counterespionage organization, Abwehr, before and during World War II; and studied the war crimes file on Amon Goeth, the commandant of the Plaszow concentration camp. Crowe posits that Schindler had nothing to do with the creation of his famous transport lists (one for 700 men and one for 300 women) and then devotes a long chapter on its true origin. Crowe sees that Schindler's transformation from a greedy factory owner into one of the most remarkable righteous gentiles in the Holocaust took place slowly. "I think that he was, at heart, a fairly decent human being despite his womanizing and heavy drinking," Crowe concludes, and that over time, the growing violence and death that enveloped Krakow's Jews disgusted him and prompted him to do whatever he could to protect his Jewish workers from the SS. With 32 black-and-white photographs, this biography is essential in understanding one of the most extraordinary figures from the Holocaust. George Cohen
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Michael Berenbaum, The University of Judaism Los Angeles, California; Former Director of the Research Institute, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Former President, Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation; Author, A Promise to Remember
"A monumental work of scholarship, detailed, informed, precise and measured, the definitive work on this extraordinary man."

Book Description
Spy, businessman, bon vivant, Nazi Party member, Righteous Gentile. This was Oskar Schindler, the controversial man who saved eleven hundred Jews during the Holocaust but struggled afterwards to rebuild his life and gain international recognition for his wartime deeds. David Crowe examines every phase of Schindler's life in this landmark biography, presenting a savior of mythic proportions who was also an opportunist and spy who helped Nazi Germany conquer Poland. Schindler is best known for saving over a thousand Jews by putting them on the famed "Schindler's List" and then transferring them to his factory in today's Czech Republic. In reality, Schindler played only a minor role in the creation of the list through no fault of his own. Plagued by local efforts to stop the movement of Jewish workers from his factory in Krak--w to his new one in BrŸnnlitz, and his arrest by the SS who were investigating corruption charges against the infamous Amon Gšth, Schindler had little say or control over his famous "List." The tale of how the "List" was really prepared is one of the most intriguing parts of the Schindler story that Crowe tells here for the first time. Forced into exile after the war, success continually eluded Schindler and he died in very poor health in 1974. He remained a controversial figure, even in death, particularly after Emilie Schindler, his wife of forty-six years, began to criticize her husband after the appearance of Steven Spielberg's film in 1993. In Oskar Schindler, Crowe steps beyond the mythology that has grown up around the story of Oskar Schindler and looks at the life and work of this man whom one prominent Schindler Jew described as "an extraordinary man in extraordinary times."

About the Author
David M. Crowe is a professor of history at Elon University where he teaches German and Russian history. He has served as president of the Association for the Study of Nationalities at Columbia University and is a member of the Education Committee of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. He currently serves on the Editorial Board of Nationalities Papers. He lives in Greensboro, North Carolina.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Spy, businessman, bon vivant, Nazi Party member, Righteous Gentile. This was Oskar Schindler, the controversial man who saved eleven hundred Jews during the Holocaust but struggled afterwards to rebuild his life and gain international recognition for his wartime deeds. David Crowe examines every phase of Schindler's life in this landmark biography, presenting a savior of mythic proportions who was also an opportunist and spy who helped Nazi Germany conquer Poland.

Schindler is best known for saving over a thousand Jews by putting them on the famed "Schindler's List" and then transferring them to his factory in today's Czech Republic. In reality, Schindler played only a minor role in the creation of the list through no fault of his own. Plagued by local efforts to stop the movement of Jewish workers from his factory in Krak-w to his new one in Brnnlitz, and his arrest by the SS who were investigating corruption charges against the infamous Amon Gth, Schindler had little say or control over his famous "List." The tale of how the "List" was really prepared is one of the most intriguing parts of the Schindler story that Crowe tells here for the first time.

Forced into exile after the war, success continually eluded Schindler and he died in very poor health in 1974. He remained a controversial figure, even in death, particularly after Emilie Schindler, his wife of forty-six years, began to criticize her husband after the appearance of Steven Spielberg's film in 1993.

In Oskar Schindler, Crowe steps beyond the mythology that has grown up around the story of Oskar Schindler and looks at the life and work of this man whom one prominent Schindler Jew described as "an extraordinary man in extraordinary times.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

What is the truth behind the enigma known as Oskar Schindler? In this detailed, scholarly work, Crowe (history, Elon Univ.; Education Committee, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum) corrects inaccuracies in the popular versions of Schindler's story (e.g., Thomas Keneally's Schindler's List and Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning film adaptation) and brings to life a more believable figure. Crowe reveals new evidence about Schindler's life and activities, using primary research from around the world and interviews with Schindler's widow and many of the remaining Schindlerjuden. Despite Schindler's vices (which included women, drinking, bribery, and espionage), Crowe concludes that Schindler's heroics, motivated by moral obligation, saved between 1100 and 1200 Jews. He also divulges that Schindler himself did not compile the list, although he did verbally and physically intercede in saving his workers and many of their relations. This hefty biography covers both the prewar and the postwar periods through Schindler's death and the death of his wife. Any library that owns Keneally's book or Spielberg's film should have this definitive account. Highly recommended.-Maria C. Bagshaw, Lake Erie Coll., Painesville, OH Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

A monumental work of scholarship, detailed, informed, precise and measured, the definitive work on this extraordinary man. — (Michael Berenbaum, The University of Judaism Los Angeles, California; Former Director of the Research Institute, The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Former President, Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation; Author, A Promise to Remember)

Dr. Mordecai Paldiel, Director, Righteous Among the Nations Department. Yad VashemA must for anyone wanting to know the true story of Oskar Schindler. — Dr. Mordecai Paldiel

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