During the bleakest years of World War II, Emilie Schindler risked her life to help her husband, Oskar, save hundreds of Jews from Nazi death camps.
She bought medicine and food on the black market. And when her husband was arrested by Nazi officials, she negotiated his release.The story of Oskar Schindler, a German entrepreneur who saved 1,200 Jews by employing them in his factories, became famous with Steven Spielberg's Academy Award-winning film "Schindler's List."
The story of his wife is not so widely known.
Her efforts were acknowledged during a ceremony Sunday at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance.
She, in turn, lit a flame in the center's courtyard in memory of the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust. It was one of several Holocaust remembrances held around the country for Yom Hashoa, which was Wednesday.
"For what I did, I did not expect any reward," Emilie Schindler said through an interpreter. "I just did what (one does) when others are in trouble, when other people are murdered."
Today, the 86-year-old woman walks with a cane and wears her white hair cropped. A spirited yet quiet woman who makes her home near Buenos Aires, Emilie Schindler later told reporters she was not fond of her newfound fame.
She will not talk of Oskar Schindler, from whom she separated after the war.
"Let's leave him alone. He is dead. We do not talk of the dead," she said, dismissing a reporter's question.