Oskar Schindler's Enamel Factory
Trail of War
A former enamelware factory run by Oskar Schindler from 1939 to 1945. He employed Jews threatened with extermination; those who made it onto his list were saved. Today it houses a branch of the Museum of Kraków.
History
The "Rekord" enamelware factory was founded in 1937, and from January 1938 it occupied a new building on Lipowa Street in Zabłocie. In November 1939 Oskar Schindler took over the management of the bankrupt company; at the beginning of 1940 he leased the buildings and renamed the works Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik. Over time more and more of the workers were Jews. After the Kraków ghetto was liquidated in March 1943, Schindler housed his workers in barracks on the neighbouring plot. As the Eastern Front drew closer, he moved the factory to Brünnlitz and, with his accountant Itzhak Stern, drew up the famous list that allowed him to buy out more than 1100 people and take them to the new factory. Today the former administration building houses a museum with the exhibition "Kraków under Nazi Occupation 1939-1945", opened on 10 June 2010.
Did you know?
The story of the factory and its owner was told in the novel "Schindler's Ark" by the Australian writer Thomas Keneally. Steven Spielberg based his film "Schindler's List" on it, shot largely in Poland.