Emilie Schindler grew up in a Sudeten German family in Alt Moletein (now Starý Maletín). She married Oskar Schindler in 1928. Emilie Schindler initially actively supported her husband’s work in German counterintelligence. In 1939 Oskar Schindler took over an enamelware factory in German-occupied Kraków. Numerous Jews had to perform forced labor in Schindler’s factory. Schindler set up a separate sub-camp of Plaszow labor camp on the factory premises, where the workers were treated better than in the main camp.
In 1944 Schindler’s factory began producing arms. When the frontline came closer, he relocated production to Brünnlitz (Brněnec) in Moravia. There, Emilie Schindler took care of the Jewish workers along with her husband. In January 1945 Oskar Schindler had around 100 Jews freed from a freight train waiting at the station, and took them into his factory. Emilie Schindler obtained food for the starving prisoners, who were gradually able to recover.
In 1993 Emilie Schindler was honored as Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem.