It won't be cheap, but you could soon be the owner of a piece of World War II history in the Czech Republic. Oskar Schindler's factory in the tiny village of Brnenec is going on the market. Yes, Oskar Schindler is the same Schindler who had a list.
Truth be told, this factory is a fixer-upper. Brnenec's mayor told Bloomberg that the complex "looks like Dresden after the bombing," complete with poisonous dye dumped onto the ground. He added, however, that it "has real potential."
After all, this is one of the places where Schindler, a member of the Nazi party, sheltered over 1,200 Jews during the war, many of whom were kept out of concentration camps because Schindler said they were skilled laborers. Monika Bednarek, curator of the Schindler Factory Museum in Krakow, said that the "most important part of the story happened" at the factory in Brnenec.
After some basic repairs, the factory could be used for a number of different things. For one, it could actually still make a pretty good factory, perhaps for textiles as it was originally. Local leaders are also enthusiastic about the idea of turning it into a museum to commemorate Schindler and the workers.
It's going to take some cash to make that happen, though. While a price hasn't been set for the whole complex, clean up alone will cost an estimated $2 million. [Bloomberg]
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