Abraham Bankier (May 5, 1895 – 1956) was a Polish businessman and

Holocaust The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...

survivor Survivor(s) may refer to: * one who survives Arts, entertainment and media Fictional entities * Survivors, characters in the 1997 KKnD series#Armies, ''KKnD'' video-game series * ''The Survivors'', or the ''New Survivors Foundation'', a fictional ...

who assisted Oskar Schindler in his rescue activities and worked as his factory manager.

Life

Bankier was born in

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

, then a part of

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

, on May 5, 1895, to an observant Jewish family. Prior to

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Bankier was one of the owners of the Ltd. factory on Lipowa street in

, Poland, that Oskar Schindler took over during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Schindler then employed Bankier to manage the factory, which was renamed (German Enamelware Factory Oskar Schindler), called "Emalia" for short. Bankier was able to leverage black market dealings with extra scrap metal to bring additional Jews to work at the factory, thereby giving them temporary reprieve from deportations and from the dangers of Kraków Ghetto (and after the closure of the ghetto, the

Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp Płaszów () or Kraków-Płaszów was a Nazi concentration camp operated by the SS in Płaszów, a southern suburb of Kraków, in the General Governorate of German-occupied Poland. Most of the prisoners were Polish Jews who were targeted f ...

), thus ultimately saving many lives. Bankier himself was saved by Schindler when, having forgotten his employment pass, he and some other Emalia workers were put on a train destined for a Nazi extermination camp in eastern

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. Schindler found them shortly before the train departed and was able to have them taken off the train. When

Thomas Keneally Thomas Michael Keneally, Officer of the Order of Australia, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist, and actor. He is best known for his historical fiction novel ''Schindler's Ark'', the story of Oskar Schindler' ...

's 1982 novel '' Schindler's Ark'' was adapted into the movie ''

Schindler's List ''Schindler's List'' is a 1993 American epic historical drama film directed and produced by Steven Spielberg and written by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the historical novel '' Schindler's Ark'' (1982) by Thomas Keneally. The film follows ...

'', Bankier's role was combined, along with those of Itzhak Stern and Mietek Pemper, into the composite character "Itzhak Stern". This was a distortion, most likely caused by the fact that most of Keneally's and Spielberg's historical witnesses knew Schindler from his subsequent time in Brünnlitz, not in Kraków, where most of the film transpired and Bankier did much of his work. According to American Holocaust historian David M. Crowe, "Bankier's skills as a businessman and a black marketeer provided Oskar Schindler with the vast resources he needed to hire, house, feed, transfer, and save hundreds of Jewish workers." Bankier died in 1956 in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

, at the Vienna South Train Station, of his third heart attack.

Notes

References

;Citations ;Bibliography * * *

External links

* Ralf Eibl and Norbert Jessen (February 22, 2000)
"Im Schatten Schindlers"
in ''Die Welt'' * Ralf Eibl (March 13, 2000)

in ''Die Welt'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Bankier, Abraham 1895 births 1956 deaths Gross-Rosen concentration camp survivors Polish Holocaust survivors Kraków Ghetto inmates Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp survivors Businesspeople from Kraków Polish emigrants to Austria Schindlerjuden