Schindler’s ring of hope
QUESTION Was the ring given to Oskar Schindler in the film Schindler’s List based on a genuine article?
It WAS. Oskar Schindler was a German industrialist and member of the Nazi party. taking advantage of the occupation programme to Germanise Jewish businesses, he bought Rekord Ltd, an enamelware manufacturer in Krakow, Poland, in November 1939.
He established Deutsche Emalwarenfabrik Oskar Schindler (German Enamelware Factory Oskar Schindler), also known as Emalia, and made a fortune producing cookware and munitions.
His growing revulsion at the Nazi persecution of the Jews wrought a transformation in the unprincipled opportunist. His former avarice took second place to an all-consuming desire to rescue as many Jews as possible.
In the autumn of 1944, Schindler learned that his workforce of 1,200 Jews were to be killed in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
A large number were unskilled workers, whom Schindler had been protecting under the guise of essential labour, and he knew they would not stand up to Gestapo scrutiny.
Schindler bribed Nazi officials to transfer his entire workforce to the relative safety of the Brunnlitz labour camp in the modern-day Czech Republic. the transport list, the famous Schindler’s List, was created through bribery, with the SS charging a fee for each worker.
In an emotional scene in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 movie Schindler’s List, labourers in the armaments factory hand Schindler a gold ring, fashioned from tooth fillings, as a thanks for saving their lives.
this was based on a genuine event. Before the labourers were liberated in early May 1945, jeweller Jozef Gross used an oxy-acetylene torch to make a ring prototype from a lead pipe, using a cuttlefish shell as a mould.
the ring was lost by Schindler shortly after the war, but the model went to Australia with Gross and lay in his workshop in Melbourne for 50 years.
After his death in 1997, it was discovered by his son Louis, who donated it to the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Victoria.
According to Louis, Jozef thought Spielberg’s film was ‘very accurate except for two things: Schindler did not give a speech at the end and there were no engraving tools so there was no inscription on the ring’.
In the movie, the ring is inscribed with a quote from the talmud, the central text in Judaism: ‘He who saves one life saves the world entire.’
Jozef’s mother, seven siblings, first wife and their four- year- old son died in concentration camps.
Ruth Greene, Falmouth, Cornwall.
QUESTION What is the oldest working canal?
THE Fossdyke Navigation runs for 11 miles from the River trent at torksey to Lincoln. thought to have been constructed by the Romans in 120 AD during their occupation of Britain, it is the oldest canal still operating in England.
together with Car Dyke, it formed part of an important trade route between Peterborough and York.
It is claimed that the Danes used it when they invaded and the Normans transported stone by the canal to build Lincoln Cathedral in the 11th century.
Refurbishment took place in 1121 under the reign of Henry I, when the navigation is mentioned for the first time by Symeon of Durham in his Historia Regum.
Improvements made in 1671 included a lock at torksey and wharves at Brayford Pool in the centre of Lincoln. Commercial operation ceased in 1972, but the Brayford Mere trust has helped to convert the pool into an attractive marina. In 1996, the University of Lincoln opened on its southern bank.
Tim Mickleburgh, Grimsby, Lincs.
QUESTION Why were cats parachuted into Malaya by the RAF?
OPERAtION Cat Drop took place in the 1950s in Sarawak, Borneo, which is part of present- day Malaysia. A New York times article describing this event was published on May 22, 1955, and headlined: ‘the fur is flying.’
the need for this military operation was due to the mosquito.
the colonial British had been battling against malaria for decades, but it was the World War II development of the chemical DDt, first synthesised in 1874 by the Austrian chemist Othmar Zeidler, that allowed the mass spraying of swampy areas to kill the pest.
However, DDt also killed other wildlife, including a predatory fly that controlled a type of moth, the larvae of which fed on the palm fronds used to thatch houses.
this caused the moth to multiply and thatched roofs to collapse. the flies, contaminated by DDt, were eaten by lizards, which were then eaten by cats.
the poisoning of thousands of felines led to a rapid rise in rats, which had an impact on the ability to farm and store crops such as rice. the rats also carried diseases deadly to humans.
Some of the villages where cats had been wiped out were too remote to be accessed easily by road, so it was decided to drop felines into the area by parachute from aircraft operating out of RAF Changi, Singapore.
the cats were transported in perforated crates designed to break once they landed. As many as 14,000 cats were dropped. It isn’t known how many survived, but the rat population was soon brought back under control. this use of DDt in Malaysia provided a lesson on the interconnectedness of nature.
DDt is no longer permitted as an insecticide in developed countries, but India and North Korea are known to use it, despite its health risks to humans.
Bob Dillon, Edinburgh. IS THERE a question to which you want to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question here? Write to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London W8 5TT; or email charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection is published, but we’re unable to enter into individual correspondence.
Visit mailplus.co.uk to hear the Answers To Correspondents podcast