Oskar Schindler, page 15
Schindler was interested in acquiring a business and wanted his advice, according to Stern. At this point, Oskar took a financial balance statement out of his pocket about a company called Rekord, Ltd. and wanted to know Stern’s opinion about its financial health. Stern’s brother, an attorney, had represented a Swiss company that was suing Rekord, Ltd. and knew a great deal about its economic history. Stern recommended that Oskar rent or purchase a business and not take one over as a trustee. From Stern’s perspective, the owner of a factory “was relatively free in the employment of Jews” and would be more personally connected to the factory than a trustee, who would operate the factory for the Reich. Stern said that at one point in their conversation, he forgot he was talking to a German; he told Schindler that the Talmud said that if one man could save another, it was like saving the whole world. Schindler was amazed that Stern knew what he did about Rekord, Ltd. and asked him how a Jew was privy to such information. The day before, Aue had asked Stern to analyze and explain to him a recent set of regulations from Berlin on labor and related costs in Poland. This was how Stern had learned so much about the advantages of renting or buying property as opposed to taking it over as a trustee. Stern knew this was highly sensitive information but told Oskar that it had been readily available in many German newspapers. Oskar looked at Stern and said, “Don’t tell me this. I know better than that.” He then affectionately patted Stern on the back as they walked into Aue’s office to discuss politics and philosophy.32
This is all that Stern had to say about his first meeting with Oskar. The second meeting took place on December 4; this is when Oskar obliquely warned him of the forthcoming German raid on Jewish homes: “Tomorrow you’ll see a big thing, and you’ll find out what the Germans can do.” Oskar was trying to tell Stern of a deadly German Aktion, though Stern and his friends, who were suspicious of Schindler, refused to heed his warning. Afterwards, Stern regretted his understandable hesitancy to believe anything a German told him and became more trusting of Schindler.33
The difference between Stern’s and Keneally’s accounts of how Schindler met Stern are nothing compared to Steven Spielberg’s decision to cast Itzhak Stern as Schindler’s Jewish alter ego in Schindler’s List. Spielberg, or more appropriately his final scriptwriter, Steven Zaillian, intended Stern to be Schindler’s subconscious, a composite figure encompassing three people: Abraham Bankier, Mietek Pemper, and Stern. Mi-etek Pemper, though, told me that Steven Spielberg told him during the filming of Schindler’s List in Kraków in 1993 that Itzhak Stern was a composite of Stern and Pemper. Spielberg said nothing to him about Abraham Bankier. This decision made for good cinema, but it was bad history. Bankier was the financial genius who ran Schindler’s factory in Kraków. Stern himself readily admitted to Dr. Ball-Kaduri that “he never worked for Schindler in Kraków, and he also at no time was living in the Jewish camp near the Schindler factory.” Instead, Stern continued to work for J. L. Buchheister & Co., and later for the Progress metalworking factory, first in Kraków and later in the Płaszów concentration camp. Both were run by a trustee, Herr Unkelbach, whose Progress factory was shut down by Amon Göth, the commandant at Płaszów, because Unkelbach had been too lenient towards his Jewish workers. Stern then went to work for Göth in the camp’s administrative offices.34
So if Stern did not work closely with Schindler from 1939 to 1944, what was the reason for his relationship with the Sudeten German businessman? Moreover, why was he given so much more prominence in Ke-neally’s novel and Spielberg’s film than equally important figures such as Pemper and Bankier? Certainly Schindler thought highly of Stern and maintained contacts with him throughout the war. In a letter to Dr. Ball- Kaduri on September 9, 1956, Oskar wrote: “Seldom in my life have I encountered people of his standard. His high ethical values, his fearless willingness to help, his sacrificial efforts for his brothers combined with modesty in his own life have repeatedly caused my great admiration and respect. Mr. Isaak Stern has been a substantial part of the reason why my rescue efforts were successful.” But what was the nature of their relationship? It had little to do with the running of Schindler’s Emalia factory because Bankier did that brilliantly. More than likely, it had to do with Stern’s contacts in Göth’s office and his invaluable ties to the Kraków Jewish community’s leadership.35
As we shall see later, in 1943 Oskar Schindler became a courier and go-between for the Jewish Agency for Palestine, which was trying to filter money into Poland to help Jews and determine the depth of Germany’s deadly policies towards Jews there. Soon after the war broke out, Stern went to work for the Society for the Protection of Health (TOZ; To-warzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia), which was created and funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (the Joint; AJJDC). Stern headed TOZ operations in Kraków and was responsible for the health of Jews in the city. TOZ operated different types of medical facilities and, as long as the Germans permitted it, gave training courses for nursing personnel. When necessary, TOZ opened soup kitchens for orphaned children. Once sent to Płaszów, Stern became an important contact for Schindler and the Jewish Agency. Stern supplied Schindler with information about conditions in the camp, and Schindler supplied him with funds from the Jewish Agency to help the Jewish prisoners there.36
Though Keneally said that Stern had the manners of a Talmudic scholar and an East European intellectual, his relationship with Schindler had more to do with business and survival than with intellectual matters. In some ways, Schindler and Stern were quite different, though they also had things in common. What drew the two men together was opportunity. Schindler was an impatient and impulsive personality; Stern was thoughtful and calm. Both men exuded a certain strength. And in their own ways, Schindler and Stern were brave men. Jews who worked for Amon Göth lived in constant fear for their lives. Stern was no exception. Yet he prided himself on his calm nature, particularly when he dealt with Germans. Both men also came from business families. Stern’s father, Menachem, was a successful bookkeeper. To prepare himself to follow his father, Stern studied trade science in Vienna and Kraków before he joined J. L. Buchmeister. Though he was only nine years older than Oskar, Stern was more of a father figure to Schindler than an elder brother. But it would be wrong to depict him as Oskar’s friend, at least during the war. Friendship requires a level of personal contact that was not permitted between Germans and Jews during the Holocaust. Moreover, Oskar Schindler was still a German and Jews who wished to survive had to maintain a distance from all Germans.Numerous Schindlerjuden have told me that despite what Oskar Schindler did for them, during the war they were distrustful of him because he was a German. Not until the war ended did they feel comfortable with a more trusting relationship with their “savior.”37
Yet one other Jew was equally or more important to Oskar Schindler during the war: Abraham Bankier. After Oskar leased Emalia, his friends kidded him about his acquisition. They said that “all his fortune consisted of was a Jew by the name of Bankier and ten enamel pot covers.” Janka Olszewska, one of Oskar’s closest Polish friends and who still lives in Kraków, said that Emalia was run by Schindler and Bankier. She added that together they looked like the “comic heroes of some silent movie.” To Janka, they looked like Mutt and Jeff, “Bankier, short and fat, and Schindler tall and slim.” Janka’s statement about Bankier’s importance to Schindler and Emalia is supported by numerous statements by Schindler and other Jews such as Sol Urbach, who worked for Oskar in Kraków and Brünnlitz and had access to his office complexes. According to Urbach, Bankier had an office behind Schindler’s at Emalia. Schindler’s office was decorated with the usual Nazi art and photos for his German clients, but Bankier received Polish businessmen in his plain rear office.38
Victor Dortheimer, one of the few Schindler Jews who worked for Oskar at Emalia and Brünnlitz, confirmed the importance of Bankier to Schindler’s operations in Kraków. Dortheimer was never consulted by Ke-neally or Spielberg even though he considered himself Schindler’s personal master painter: “I had a personal relationship with the Director [Schindler]. All the time I was in the Emalia factory, Stern was never seen. Bankier was the boss, he had his own office and never wore the ‘star.’”39 Dortheimer later told two German reporters that it was Bankier who was responsible for bringing the first Jewish workers to Emalia. Bankier had a special pass that let him come and go from the ghetto to the factory. At first, he took a group of twenty Jewish workers from the ghetto to the factory and back each day; in fact, he was the one principally responsible for bringing many of the Jews to Emalia, thus saving their lives.40
Bankier’s genius centered around his black market skills, which provided Schindler with substantial profits and the money he used to help his Jewish workers. Bankier obtained quantities of metal beyond the factory’s quota to make extra pots and pans, which he then used to purchase goods on the black market. Bankier was always the one blamed for black market deals that went bad. He risked his life, Dortheimer explained, time and again, but Schindler remained unmolested. Because of this, Bankier became indispensable to Oskar Schindler. When Dortheimer attended the London premiere of Schindler’s List, he spotted Steven Spielberg. As Spielberg’s body guards pushed him away, Dortheimer shouted to Spielberg, “It’s all wrong.” Later, he told two German reporters: “Schindler was our savior. But in the Emalia factory Bankier was the key figure. Without Bankier there would have been no Schindler.”41
Bankier traveled frequently with Oskar around Kraków. Oskar thought so highly of Bankier that he told Jewish Agency representatives in Budapest in November 1943 that because Bankier had “a clear overview of the whole business,” he could, “without worrying, go away for four weeks, and know that he [would] faithfully substitute” for him.42 Bankier enjoyed such a position of privilege that Schindler got into trouble for it. One day after the opening of the ghetto in the early spring of 1941, SS-Hauptscharführer Wilhelm Kunde and SS-Oberscharführer Hermann Hubert Heinrich, whom Schindler described as two of the most feared SS men in the ghetto, met with Oskar at Emalia. They said they had just learned from the Gestapo about Bankier’s privileged position in the factory. What followed was a detailed SS investigation of the operation at Emalia, which was assisted by a representative from the Trustee Office. Evidently they were looking for a legal violation so they could close the factory and turn it over to the Trustee Office. They found nothing and left Oskar and Bankier alone, at least for a while. Schindler later found out that a former disgruntled employee, Natan Wurzel, had told another ghetto resident, Mr. Spitz, about Bankier’s special position at Emalia. Spitz in turn told Kunde and Heinrich.43
It is no accident, then, that Oskar first thanked Bankier and then Stern in his July 1945 financial report about his wartime activities. Over the years, Oskar developed a deep affection for Bankier. In a letter to Stern in the fall of 1956, Oskar included some pictures from the “Old Time.” One of them was of Oskar and Bankier, whom Oskar affectionately called “Boguslav.” The photo, he wrote, “awakens many memories in me.”44 Unknown to Oskar, his beloved loyal Bankier had recently died in Vienna. For daily activities, then, Bankier was much more important to Oskar than Stern. Almost 80 percent of Oskar’s business dealings were on the black market and it was Bankier who did most of the trading. Bankier’s skills as a businessman and a black marketeer provided Oskar Schindler with the vast resources he needed to hire, house, feed, transfer, and save hundreds of Jewish workers.
Schindler, Emalia, and the Wurzel-Wiener Controversy
The reason that Bankier became so close to Oskar was through his earlier ties with Rekord, Ltd. Given the nature of the German occupation, one would presume that Oskar’s takeover of a former Jewish business would have been easy. In many ways, it was, though after the war it would lead to a series of charges so serious that some questions were raised in Israel in 1962 about whether Oskar Schindler should be named a Righteous Gentile. Even if these charges had not been made, broader ones arose in the 1980s and 1990s after the appearance of Keneally’s novel and Spielberg’s film. They centered around the idea that, despite his motivations, Schindler was no better than a thief when he acquired Jewish property in German-occupied Poland. At a distance, this was a general charge that could be made against any German who took over Jewish property in German-occupied Poland. But for Oskar Schindler, the charge was more personal because one of the two Jews who waged a campaign against Schindler in the courts and media of Argentina and Israel was a Schindlerjude.
The reason so little has been written about these charges is that until recently not much information was available and most of them were in Hebrew at Yad Vashem. Thomas Keneally alluded to the controversy in his novel but did not deal with it in detail. Schindler’s defense of his actions can be found in the recently discovered Schindler Koffer (suitcase) files now at Yad Vashem. But to get the full story behind Schindler’s acquisition of the former Polish Jewish factory, Pierwsza Małopolska Fabryka Naczyń Emaliowanych i Wyrobów Blaszanych “Rekord,” Spółka, z ograniczoną odpowiedzialnościąw Krakowie (First Little Polish Limited Liability Factory of Enamel Vessels and Tinware, Record, Limited Liability Company in Kraków), one must look also at the extensive Polish Okrêgowy (Trade) court records in Kraków on this subject.45 Also revealing is the extensive collection of documents supplied by Schindler to West German officials in the 1950s and 1960s in his efforts to qualify for Lastenausgleich (equalization of burdens) compensation for his lost factories in Kraków and Brünnlitz. Collectively, these files detail the steps that Oskar Schindler took first to lease and then to buy the bankrupt Jewish factory. His decision to allow Abraham Bankier full control of his factory’s daily affairs is linked to all this. The Polish court records also carefully document efforts by the principal figure involved in the postwar controversy, Natan Wurzel, to be awarded compensation for what he felt was stolen property.
Rekord, Ltd. was the joint endeavor of three Jewish businessmen in Kraków, Michał Gutman, Wolf Luzer Glajtman, and Izrael Kohn, who bought a small enamelware factory built in 1935. These men were not on the famous “Schindler’s List” in the fall of 1944. They filed papers for the incorporation of their enamel and tinware factory on March 17, 1937, in Kraków. Rekord, Ltd. was set up with Zł 100,000 ($18,939) in capital. Each of the new owners received shares in Rekord Ltd., each share being worth Zł 500. Wolf Glajtman contributed Zł 50,000 ($9,470) for a hundred shares, and Luzer and Kohn Zł 25,000 ($4,735) for fifty shares apiece.46
In the fall of 1937, a new partner, Herman Hirsch, bought into the firm for Zł 12,000 ($2,273) and twenty-four shares, which reduced the capital investments of Glajtman (now Zł 48,000, Kohn (Zł 20,000), and Gutman (Zł 20,000). This ownership arrangement was also expanded to include Wolf Luzer Glajtman’s four brothers, Uszer, Szyj, Leibisch, and Zalka, as well as his brothers-in-law, Abraham Bankier and Abram Szydłowski. They would collectively be given sixty-six shares of Rekord, Ltd., with the stipulation that Wolf Luzer Glajtman would always keep thirty shares for himself. Herman Hirsch was also given the right to transfer his shares to his wife, Adela, or to his brother-in-law, Natan Wurzel, or his wife, Gustawa Wurzel. Hirsch also gave the Wurzels proxy rights to act in his stead on business matters.
The board of directors consisted of the owners, though only one, Bankier, who was the factory manager, could be dismissed. This arrangement would not go into effect until the end of 1938. Wolf Luzer Glajtman and Bankier had the right to sign checks and enter into business deals for the company, but Michał Gutman had to approve checks for more than Zł 2,000 ($379). A year later, a new partner was brought into the business, Hersz Szpigelman, who invested Zł 3,000 ($566) in the firm. Rekord, Ltd.’s base capitalization remained at Zł 100,000. This reduced Michał Gutman’s investment in the firm to Zł 17,000 ($3,208).47
It would seem to be an optimum time to open a factory in Kraków— unless you were Jewish. Poland, like many of its Central and East European neighbors, had suffered terribly in the immediate years after World War I. The country’s economic ills had been one of the issues that led to Marshal Józef Piłsudski’s military coup in 1926. A modest economic recovery followed, but ended with the Depression in the early 1930s. A year after Piłsudski’s death in 1935, government officials launched an economic recovery plan that saw industrial production increase rapidly. It now seemed that the time was ripe for the opening of new business ventures in Poland. Unfortunately, part of the government’s economic plan was the reduction of the role of Jews in the Polish economy. Prime Minister General Felicjan Sławoj Składkowski of Poland perhaps best summed up official attitudes towards the Jews’ role in the Polish economy when he said in 1936 that there should be an “economic struggle [against the Jews] by all means—but without force.” In reality, Poland’s Jews had suffered from almost two decades of economic anti-Semitism. According to Ezra Mendelsohn, what was new was the government’s support of such policies. The ongoing economic pauperization of Poland’s large Jewish population now intensified with a new round of boycotts and other anti-Semitic actions.48
