A Fortune Spent on Mercy

In 1939, Oskar Schindler arrived in Kraków as an opportunist. A member of the Nazi Party, the German industrialist acquired a seized enamelware factory and staffed it with cheap Jewish labor from the nearby ghetto. He came to profit from the war.

But something shifted. As Schindler witnessed the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto in March 1943 — families torn apart, children hunted through the streets — he began using his factory as a shield. With the help of his Jewish accountant, Itzhak Stern, Schindler compiled a list of workers he declared essential to wartime production. When the SS moved to deport his workers to Auschwitz in late 1944, he relocated his entire operation to Brünnlitz in Czechoslovakia, bribing Nazi officials at every turn. He spent every reichsmark he had — his entire personal fortune — on black-market food, medicine, and bribes to keep his workers alive. By May 1945, 1,200 Jewish men and women had survived under his protection. Schindler himself was penniless.

The prophet Micah asked what the Almighty requires of us: "To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." Schindler's story reveals that mercy is never cheap. Justice costs something. It cost him everything he had earned.

The call of Micah 6:8 is not a suggestion to feel compassion from a safe distance. It is an invitation to spend yourself — your comfort, your resources, your reputation — on behalf of those who cannot repay you.