The Museum of Survivors hosted its first visitors this weekend at the site of an old industrial plant in the Czech town of Brněnec 100 miles east of Prague, in an event timed to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II.
The former factory is where German businessman Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jews during the war. The compound was stolen by the Nazis from its Jewish owners in 1938 and turned into a labor camp.
The museum is not currently open on a daily basis but focuses on educational activities for students.
Schindler’s story was told in Steven Spielberg’s Oscar-winning 1993 movie, “Schindler’s List.”
Eighty years ago this month, Schindler received a golden ring from the grateful Jewish survivors, made with gold taken from their teeth and inscribed with the Hebrew words from Talmud: “Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.”
Schindler, who was posthumously recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Museum, is buried in Jerusalem.
