Through filmmaker Steven Spielberg, we're all familiar with Schindler's List now. And the tale of this Nazi party member's chutzpa in risking his own life to save the lives of over 1200 of his Jewish forced laborers -- destined otherwise for Hitler's death camps -- has become legend.
His list, for auction on eBay this week with a starting price of $3-million, is a prime example of trash to treasure. Not only because most items like it end up shredded these days and in a dump or recycling center, but because, to Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, those individuals on Schindler's List were also considered garbage.
German Holocaust survivor Halina Silber was one of the prisoners Oskar Schindler specifically marked for rescue. At 13, she'd lied about her age to work in one of his factories and, consequently, made his now-famous list.
Still alive today, Silber says her boss "was exceptionally caring and compassionate about what he was doing," and that he "risked not only his professional standing but his own life to save and support these Jewish workers."
Because of that, three generations and thousands more were ultimately spared extermination and genocide.
A race of people, a slip of paper ... it gives one pause when making similar evaluations today about what to prize and what to throw away, doesn't it?
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