Oskar Schindler saved over 1,200 Jews during the Second World War. By the end of the war he was completely ruined - financially, personally, with no future to speak of. The people he saved survived. He didn't survive in the same sense of the word: he went bankrupt, was forced to emigrate to Argentina, where his businesses there also failed.

The story is harshly ironic. Schindler spent his entire fortune bribing Nazi officials to protect his workers. After 1945 he had nothing. Back in Germany from 1958, he lived modestly on donations from Jewish organizations - people who had once been his workers were now repaying the debt in their own way. Israel awarded him the title "Righteous Among the Nations" in 1963 - twenty years after the rescue.

Schindler died in 1974, modestly and almost forgotten. He got his last wishes: he was buried in Jerusalem, in a Catholic cemetery on Mount Zion. The world learned his name through Spielberg's film in 1993 - nineteen years after his death.

Why does this story matter today? Because it's a reminder that doing real good and being recognized for it are two different things that rarely happen at the same time. Schindler paid for his choices with everything he had. Has the system of values that's supposed to reward people who risk everything for others actually changed? Or are we just finding new ways to celebrate them posthumously?