Oskar Schindler, page 32
Mietek Pemper had occasion to see some of Göth’s private documents. He explained in a 1996 interview that every so often one of Göth’s adjutants, SS-Hauptsturmführer Raimund Gaube, would ask Pemper to help him draft a letter that necessitated looking at Göth’s secret documents. Pemper would explain that because of Göth’s insistence on perfection, he would have to see all documents relating to the proposed letter. If Göth was away, Gaube would allow Pemper access to these files, but only behind locked doors. Sometimes Gaube would carelessly forget to close the safe, which also contained secret documents. Pemper, who had a photographic memory, would use these opportunities to read everything he could get his hands on. This is how Pemper came across letters relating to Göth’s service with Aktion Reinhard. One of the letters that Pemper read but later destroyed during a routine barracks check was from Globočnik to the commandants of Bełźec, Sobibór, and Treblinka. According to Pemper, this letter gave Göth the right to move freely about all three of these camps as an inspector involved in construction matters.65
For an ambitious SS man, an appointment to Globočnik’s staff was an important career move. And by this time, Amon Leopold Göth was a highly thought-of member of the SS. A July 14, 1941, Certificate of Service (Dienstleistungszeugnis) made out by his commanding officer, SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Winter, praised Göth’s loyalty, service, character, proper Weltanschauung (world view), and racial characteristics. Winter added that Göth was also “free from any confessional [religious] ties.” Three months later, Winter and his superior, SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Polizei Ernst Kaltenbrunner, the head of SS-Oberabschnittes Donau (SS sub-district for Austria), soon to become head of RSHA to replace the murdered Reinhard Heydrich, signed off on a special SS Personal Report (Personal-Bericht) about Göth that went into greater detail about his physical traits as well as his family and financial situation, his personal character, his military and SS background, his training and athletic abilities, his world view, and his knowledge of the SS bureaucracy. At the end of the report, Winter discussed Göth’s advancement prospects.66
Not surprisingly, Winter gave Amon Göth high marks in every category. Racially, he was deemed to be of Phalian-Eastern extraction with a very good demeanor. Winter wrote that his appearance and behavior were “flawless.” Göth’s finances were sound and his family situation was considered to be good. Winter considered him bright and well-educated. Göth’s “interpretation of life and power of judgement” were considered “affirmative and clear.” He was deemed to have no “flaws” and his special strength was his “courageous, determined attitude.” He earned affirmative or good marks on all questions about his special police training, his field service, and his knowledge and practice of sports. The only negative was his failure so far to earn his Sports Badge (Sportabzeichen), a reference to the German National Badge for Physical Training (Deutsches Reichsabzeichen für Leibesübungen). Overall, Winter concluded, Amon Göth was an upright National Socialist able to make all the necessary sacrifices required of an SS-man. He added that Göth was well suited to be an SS commander.67
Göth, Tarnów, and Szebnie
Anyone familiar with the Oskar Schindler story has read or seen depictions of Amon Göth’s brutal closing of the Kraków ghetto in March 1943. But most people are not aware of his efforts to close the Tarnów ghetto on September 3, 1943, and his shutting down of the Szebnie forced labor camp in southeastern Poland from September 21, 1943, through February 3, 1944. Göth did this extra duty for the SS while serving as commandant at the Płaszów forced labor (later concentration) camp. Two of the Polish government’s five charges against Göth after World War II dealt with his crimes in Tarnów and Szebnie.68
Tarnów, about forty-five miles east of Kraków, is a provincial capital with a rich Jewish history. Though originally a Polish city, Tarnów became part of the Austrian empire after the Russian-led Partitions of Poland in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Tarnów returned to Polish control at the end of World War I. Under the Austrians, Tarnów became an important regional trading center that attracted a large Jewish population. On the eve of World War II, about 45 percent of Tarnów’s population of 56,000 was Jewish. And although many members of Tarnów’s Jewish community played an important role in the city’s cultural and intellectual leadership, many Tarnów Jews were quite poor. Over the centuries, Tarnów’s Jewish community developed a diverse complex of religious, educational, cultural, and self-help institutions to sustain a rich community life. When World War II broke out, thousands of Jews fled to Tarnów from western Poland to escape the German onslaught. By the summer of 1940, there were 40,000 Jews in Tarnów. They suffered from the same harsh anti- Jewish policies as other Jews throughout occupied Poland.69
On June 11, 1942, the SS initiated an action against Tarnów’s Jews as part of Aktion Reinhard in preparation for the creation of a ghetto there. In a brutal Operation where hundreds of Jews were murdered in the streets, the SS rounded up 3,500 Jews and sent them to Bełźec. Four days later, the Germans initiated a second, three-day roundup that saw 10,000 more Jews sent to Bełźec. The SS and their collaborators murdered another 3,000 Jews in the Jewish cemetery and killed 7,000 beside pits dug on Tarnów’s Zbylitowska Gora (hill). On June 19, the Germans sealed off an area for the ghetto and forced Tarnów’s remaining Jews into it. Over time, the Germans had a high wooden fence built around the ghetto. On September 10, the Germans, working with the Judenrat, ordered all Jews to report to Targowica Square near one of the ghetto’s two entrances. The 8,000 Jews without a Blauschein were rounded up and sent to Bełźec. Over the next month, Jews from the surrounding area were sent to the Tarnów ghetto, which now had a population of about 15,000. On November 15, 1942, the Germans rounded up another 2,500 Jews for deportation to Bełźec and then divided the ghetto into two sections just as they had done in Kraków. Jews deemed fit for work were forced to live in Ghetto A; those who were unable to work were forced into Ghetto B.70
Julius Madritsch was one of the Germans who opened a factory in the Tarnów ghetto soon after it opened. This would be the third factory that he ran using Jewish slave laborers. Madritsch had opened his second sewing factory in a ghetto in Bochnia, which was midway between Tarnów and Kraków, earlier in 1942. Madritsch claimed in his memoirs that he had opened the factories in Bochnia and Tarnów because of the “constant begging of the Jewish council [in Kraków].”71 Madritsch estimated after World War II that he was able to save “another 1,000 to 2,000 human beings” because of his efforts in Tarnów and Bochnia. He had about three hundred sewing machines in the Tarnów ghetto, where he employed eight hundred Jewish workers.72
Madrich never said much about the conditions in his sewing factories, although testimony from survivors indicated that he and Raimund Titsch took good care of their workers. Dr. Dawid Schlang, a Schindler Jew who wrote the introduction to Madritsch’s memoirs about the war, wrote Yad Vashem about Mr. Madritsch’s exemplary conduct towards the Jewish workers: “Many survivors testify to his friendly and humane approach and his continuous care of the Jews.”73 He added that there were many times when Madritsch and his manager, Raimund Titsch, risked their lives to help Jews.74
There are several photographs of Jewish women at work on Pfaff sewing machines in the Bochnia ghetto in the archives at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., and they are probably Madritsch’s workers. These are obviously propaganda photos because the male workers in the photographs are wearing coats and ties. The women sit at old-fashioned foot-pedaled sewing machines under spare light near shaded windows. One photo has a male tailor fitting a suit coat on another man, stacks of three-quarter-length, light-colored coats in a pile behind them.75
After Amon Göth closed the Kraków ghetto in March 1943, Madritsch’s Jewish workers who now worked in his sewing factory in Płaszów begged him to transfer them to his factory in the Tarnów ghetto. Madritsch was somehow able to get permission from the SS to transfer several hundred of his Jewish workers to Tarnów; on the night of March 25–26, 1943, he succeeded in transporting 232 Jewish women, men, and children to the Tarnów ghetto, where they began work in his sewing factory. It probably took considerable bribes to persuade Göth and his SS superiors to agree to this, though Madritsch was probably also able to argue that such a request was reasonable because he would need experienced workers to operate his new factory in the Tarnów ghetto.76
Madritsch was proud of his factory in Tarnów, particularly after he was forced to move his operations in the Kraków ghetto to Płaszów, where his new factory was only several hundred yards from Amon Göth’s villa. Life in the Kraków ghetto had been harsh, but it was nothing compared to the terror-ridden atmosphere in Płaszów, where Göth took great pleasure in random, daily acts of murder. According to Madritsch, “At this point [after the closing of the Kraków ghetto] the Jews of Tarnów [about 95 kilometers away] led a life that could be looked upon with envy, since they still had a ghetto where everyone had their own apartment and their own bed.”77 Although this is an overstatement by Madritsch, it does show that he was well aware, at least comparatively, of the vast difference between life in the Tarnów ghetto and that in Płaszów under the monstrous Amon Göth.
But life for the Jews in the Tarnów ghetto, which Madritsch described as a comparative “oasis,” would soon change. In early September 1943, Amon Göth arrived to close the Tarnów ghetto and ship its Jews to Auschwitz and Płaszów. On September 1, the Tarnów ghetto’s Jews were ordered to appear the next morning at the Appellplatz at Magdeburg Square. The square was surrounded by heavily armed police, the Gestapo, the SS, Jewish OD men, and others, who began to separate children from their mothers. Over the next two days, different groups were placed in wagons and taken to the train station, where they were shipped to Płaszów and Auschwitz, though no one seemed aware that the transports to Auschwitz meant death. According to the 1946 Polish indictment against Göth, which was based on the testimony of three witnesses, Berek Figa, Leon Leser, and Mendel Balsam, Amon Göth personally shot between thirty and ninety women and children during the ghetto’s closing. Martin Balsam testified that the most shocking aspect of the roundup was the forced separation of the children from their mothers. The children were then placed in wagons and sent to their deaths. Göth played an active role in all this; as the roundup ended at mid-day on September 2, Balsam testified, Göth took out his pistol and helped shoot the two hundred children and women left in the ghetto who were not designated to be part of the clean-up crew.78
The indictment added that Göth arranged to have 8,000 of Tarnów’s Jews deported directly to Auschwitz. Another 3,000 Jews from the Bochnia ghetto and forced labor camp, which were in the process of being liquidated, were added to the Tarnów-Auschwitz transport. This group would soon be sent to Auschwitz. The Polish court records stated that only 400 Jews out of 11,000 made it to Auschwitz, meaning that Göth had the rest murdered along the way; furthermore, there is no mention of a transport arriving in Auschwitz from Tarnów in September 1943. On the other hand, the Auschwitz records do show that two transports of 3,000 Jews each arrived in Auschwitz from Bochnia on August 31 and September 2, 1943. Only 3,000 to 3,500 Jews were in Bochnia at the time, so it is probable that the second transport was made up of Jews from Tarnów. The SS selected 1,075 Jews from the first transport for slave labor and murdered the rest. Only 830 Jews on the second transport were chosen as slave laborers and the rest were murdered in the gas chambers. A few more Jews from Tarnów were sent to the Szebnie forced labor camp near Jasło. Three hundred Jews remained in the Tarnów ghetto to go through the belongings of its former Jewish residents and then clean it up. When their work was done, they were then sent to Płaszów. Mendel Balsam testified that it took two weeks to clean up the Tarnów ghetto after the roundup was completed on September 2, 1943. 79
We know very little about the history and closing of the Tarnów ghetto, particularly the role played by Amon Göth. Because this was part of the secretive Aktion Reinhard operation, no mention was made of Göth’s efforts there in his SS service jacket. On the other hand, his SS file shows that he was praised and promoted in the summer of 1943 for his actions in closing the Kraków ghetto and early administration of the Płaszów forced labor camp. This was an extraordinary promotion; Göth jumped two ranks from SS-Untersturmführer to SS-Hauptsturmführer. According to Mietek Pem-per, Göth’s Jewish stenographer, the promotion came after HSSPF Ost SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Wilhelm Krüger inspected Płaszów. Krüger was quite impressed by the large variety of machines in use at Płaszów, though Pemper said that this was a ruse. Gradually, Amon Göth was becoming a master of deception.80
In his letter of July 23, 1943, supporting Göth’s promotion to SS-Hauptsturmführer, SS-Sturmbannführer Klein, a member of the HSSPF Ost staff, praised Göth’s outstanding and authoritative work, particularly as commandant of the Płaszów forced labor camp. According to Klein, Göth had created “something out of nothing” at Płaszów. Moreover, Klein noted that Göth’s “exemplary” efforts to open Płaszów were undertaken with little consideration for his own person.”81 Sacrifices like these, of course, were the things that made a great SS officer. Five days later, the newly promoted Göth was appointed to Section F, the SS and Police Fach-gruppe (Section of Experts). His expertise: closing ghettos and shipping its inmates to slave labor or death camps.82
One of the reasons for the haste in closing the Tarnów ghetto was Göth’s growing responsibilities elsewhere. As more and more ghettos were closed during this period throughout the General Government as part of the Final Solution and Aktion Reinhard, Płaszów’s population was growing considerably, which added to his responsibilities there. But Göth’s haste in closing the Tarnów ghetto was driven more by the pace of German mass murder plans in the summer and early fall of 1942. With all six death camps now open and operating to full capacity, the Germans were determined to close the multitude of large and small ghettos throughout occupied Europe. Jews not selected as slave laborers were sent to their deaths. The pace of the German mass murder program of Jews up to this point in the Holocaust was astounding. According to Raul Hilberg, the Germans killed 1.1 million European Jews in 1941 and 2.7 million in 1942. Polish Jews were particularly vulnerable because Himmler had ordered that the General Government be clear of all Jews by the end of 1942 except those designated as slave laborers. The heavy concentration of Jews in close proximity to the six death camps in occupied Poland and the Soviet Union made the Germans’ job much easier. But it should be remembered that only about half the Jews murdered in the Holocaust died in these camps. The others died in mass murder campaigns initiated by the Einsatzgruppen, in ghetto actions or random actions of violence, during transport, from malnutrition, and other horrible ways.83
Once Göth had closed and cleaned up the Tarnów ghetto, he was ordered to close the Szebnie forced labor camp near Jasło, which was fifty miles southeast of Tarnów. If there is a dearth of information on the Tarnów ghetto, this is doubly so for Szebnie; yet, given the large number of concentration camps and sub-camps throughout German-occupied Europe, this is not surprising. During the years of Nazi power in Europe, the Germans set up thousands of large and small detention camps to imprison racial, political, criminal, and military prisoners and “enemies of the state.” In addition to the Konzentrationslager (KL; concentration camp) there were also Arbeitslager (forced labor camps), Zwangslager (forcible detention camps), Zwangsarbeitslager (penal servitude camps), Zivilge-fangenenlager (detention camps for civilians), Straflager (punitive camps), Zuchthaus (penitentary), and PW Dulags or Durchgangslager (transit camps). The Wehrmacht ran Soldatenkonzentrationslager (soldiers’ concentration camps) and military prisons as well as a network of Stalags (Stammlager, or main camps) for enlisted men and officers. Some camps existed only briefly and handled only a small number of prisoners. A classified SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) report listed 615 concentration and detention camps in Nazi-occupied Europe in 1944 but admitted that its statistics were not “entirely reliable.” It said that there were 109 camps in Poland in the fall of 1943, including twenty-four concentration camps.84
One of the camps mentioned in the SHAEF report was a “Szebunia” (Szebnie) in Jasło County, which it termed a “KL permanent camp.”85 Scattered references to Szebnie can be found in all the principal encyclopedic works on the Holocaust, though there is little detailed information about it. In the fall of 1943, Szebnie also served as a brief transit stop for Jews recently shipped out of the Przemyśl and Rzeszów ghettos. Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski’s Jews in Poland provides some details about the liquidation of Szebnie in the fall of 1943. He states that on September 22, 1943, the SS took seven hundred young and elderly Jews from Szebnie to the nearby village of Dobrucowa and murdered them. They then burned the bodies. Pogonowski adds that on November 3, SS-Sturmbannführer Willi Haase, who had been a central figure in the deportations and closing of the Kraków ghetto, arrived in Szebnie with an SS contingent, including a number of Ukrainians, to close the camp. Haase ordered the remaining 2,800 Jewish prisoners to strip naked, then began to load them on trains for transport to Auschwitz. When the Jewish prisoners arrived at Auschwitz, a few were selected for hard labor, but most were sent to the gas chambers. Pogonowski adds that on November 5, 1943, the SS executed another five hundred Jewish prisoners still at Szebnie.86
The Holocaust Chronicle states that on September 20, 1943, the SS guards at Szebnie put 1,000 Jewish prisoners on trucks and took them to a nearby field “where they shot all of them.”87 They then burned the bodies and dumped the remains in the Jasiolka River. It adds that on November 4, 1943, a rebellion broke out among the Szebnie prisoners, which the SS quickly put down. It then closed the camp and shipped the remaining 3,000 prisoners to Auschwitz. The five-volume official history of the Auschwitz camp, Auschwitz 1940–1945, corrects some of these figures. It states, as does Danuta Czech’s Auschwitz Chronicle, that on November 5, 1932, 4,237 Jews arrived at Birkenau from Szebnie. The SS selected 952 men and 396 women for slave labor and executed the rest.88
