Brnenec, Czech Republic - A dilapidated industrial site in the Czech Republic, German businessman Oskar Schindler saved 1,200 Jews during World War II.

The site was a former textile factory in the town of Burennek, about 100 miles east of Prague, stolen by the Nazis from its Jewish owners in 1938 and turned into a concentration camp. This weekend, it welcomes the first visitors to the survivors’ Museum dedicated to the Holocaust and the history of European Jews.

The opening time coincides with the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. It was also in May 1945 that Schindler received a gold ring from thankful Jewish survivors who had taken it with their teeth. The ring has the words of Talmud in Hebrew, saying, "Who saved a life and saved the whole world."

Schindler's story is told in Steven Spielberg's Oscar movie Schindler's list.

Daniel Löw-Beer is the driving force behind the project. His predecessor lived in this part of the Czech Republic for hundreds of years, and in 1854 he acquired the factory in Brnenec and turned it into one of Europe's most important wool factories.

"We had to run away for our lives, lost some history, so we restored some history to a place and hoped to bring out Oskar Schindler's history, and the village is what we are doing today," Löwbeer told the Associated Press.

Today, his family is scattered around the world. "Of course, I'm happy to put a little bit in my family because they are survivors. My grandfather lives here, my father lives here, and then one day in 1938, the world was broken."

Glass wall separates past and present

Located in part of a renovated spinning mill, the museum displays the history of Schindler, his wife Emilie, the Löw-Beer family and others associated with the area, as well as testimony from Holocaust survivors. It includes exhibitions, speeches, film screenings and concerts as well as spaces for cafes.

This section separates the present and history from the larger, still destroyed areas.

“It’s a common place for survivors,” Lowebeer said. “We want these stories to be told and people to express their opinions.”

In 2019, Löw-Beer established the Arks Foundation to purchase warehouses and convert them into museums, invest money and develop partnerships with local communities to restore neglected locations.

Regional government donations, while EU grants brought children from five European countries to BrněNec, bringing ideas that would help shape museum design.

The official opening of the weekend has completed the first step, but there is still a lot to do. The rest of the buildings are still waiting to be fully restored. These include Schindler's office, where the city hall plans to build an information center, SS units barracks, which will provide more exhibition space, as well as the entire building of Schindler's Ark where Jewish prisoners live and work.

At present, the museum is not open every day, but focuses on school educational activities.

Due to lack of funds, previous projects to restore the website failed. By contrast, the Ark Foundation has taken a step-by-step approach. When skeptical local residents really happened this time, they helped. Löw-Beer said a company carried a large truck with bricks, put them down and then fell off.

"We want to prove that you have to do something to happen," said Milan Šudoma of the foundation. He said that if organizers waited until they got all the necessary funds, nothing has been done so far.

"Oskar and Emilie Schindler prove that one person can make a difference," the museum quoted Rena Finder, one of Schindler's Jews, as saying. "Everyone said I can do nothing. It's a lie because there's always something you can do."

A contradictory person saved hundreds of lives

Schindler was an unlikely hero born in nearby Svitavy (Zwittau in German), then Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, which had German majority seats and a large number of Jews.

A Svetavi Museum says Schindler is a bunch of conflicting people: a troublemaker, a feminine man, a German spy, a Nazi, but a man who rescued the Holocaust.

After the war broke out in 1939, Schindler moved from Svitavy to Krakow, now Poland, where he ran an enamel and ammunition factory and treated Jewish workers well. As the Red Army approached in 1944, he created a list of Jewish workers he claimed needed to resettle the factory in Brněnec.

When a vehicle with 300 women was transferred to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz concentration camp, Schindler managed to secure his release.

Yad Vashem of the Jerusalem Holocaust Memorial Center said it was the only known case: “While the gas chambers are still operating, so many people are allowed to leave alive.”

In another bold act, Emilie Schindler worked to save more than 100 Jewish male prisoners who arrived at the nearby train station of the Haifengniu van in January 1945.

In 1993, Yad Vashem realized that Emilie and Oskar Schindler were just among the nations, and the honor was given to those who saved the Jews from the Holocaust.