In May 1945, on a factory floor in Brunnlitz, a group of emaciated workers pulled the gold dental bridge from one man's mouth and forged it into a signet ring for their boss, inscribed with a paraphrase from the Talmud: whoever saves one life saves the world entire. This episode goes far beyond the Hollywood myth of Oskar Schindler to examine the deeply flawed, contradictory man who received that ring, and how his vices became the exact mechanisms that saved 1,200 lives.

We follow Schindler from a forged report card and motorcycle racing in Moravia, through drinking, debt, and espionage for the Abwehr, to occupied Krakow, where he took over an enamelware factory with Jewish investors on the advice of accountant Itzhak Stern and hired Jewish workers because they were cheaper. Then we trace the psychological breaking point of the ghetto liqui ...