Oskar Schindler, page 40
In reality, the inmates in Płaszów received only about 700 to 800 calories from the camp’s food rations, which consisted of black coffee without sugar at breakfast, a light, watery soup at lunch, and “vegetable water” in the evening. They also received a daily bread ration of 390 grams (13.6 ounces). Other than bread, the principal food item for the inmates was “sago,” a dish made from barley. So if the SS allotted each worker a daily ration of 2,200 to 2,500 calories, and they got only 700 to 800 calories, where did the food go? It was kept for the SS in several large food storehouses in Płaszów. One of the storehouses was located in the Jewish prisoners’ complex. But the best foods, which included the finest cuts of meats and fancy liqueurs and vodka, were kept elsewhere for the SS. Göth used some of the extra food that he kept from his prisoners for his parties and to sell on the black market. It is quite probable that some of the food that Schindler and Madritsch bought on the black market in Kraków originally came from the SS storehouses in Płaszów. Dr. Bieberstein stated in Göth’s trial that the “money coming from these exchanges [black marketeering] of sugar and other products like fat, was used for maintaining a beautiful horse and cattle breeding, and generally for the accused’s [Göth’s] private use.”52
But Emalia’s Jewish workers did not rely solely on the black marke-teering skills of Oskar Schindler, or, more particularly, of Abraham Bankier, for sustenance. There was also active illegal trading with Emalia’s Polish workers, who were able to bring in food and items for barter with the factory’s Jews. Schindler Jew Herman Feldman (Hermann Natan Feld-mann) always made sure that his sister, Lola Feldman Orzech, had a little extra money each day to buy extra food from the Poles. But after September 1, 1943, when Göth ordered that all Jews remain in Płaszów or its sub-camps twenty-four hours a day, the cost of black market goods, particularly bread, skyrocketed in cost. A loaf of bread that once cost Zł 10 ($3.12) jumped to Zł 90 ($28.12) a loaf. And even if you did have money, the Poles now demanded a pair of shoes for a loaf of bread.53 Sam and Edith Wertheim remembered trading “bread for cigarettes or the other way around, or socks, or a shirt.”54 But not all of Schindler’s Jewish workers had money or goods to trade, so it is difficult to gauge how many of Emalia’s workers were able to supplement the rations they got from the SS and Schindler with their own black marketeering. On the other hand, work in Emalia was less rigorous than that in Płaszów and the daily caloric needs were lower than those estimated by Dr. Bieberstein in the main camp.
But the Schindlerjuden in Emalia could never forget that they were ultimately under the control of the SS. Each of them was tattooed with the letters “KL” (Konzentrationslager; concentration camp) on the left wrist. Dr. Stanley Robbin (Samek Rubenstein), a Jewish physician at Emalia, would often perform the tattoo work. But some of the workers, such as Rena Fagen, defiantly began to suck the ink out of the tattoo soon after it was put on. She once told Elinor Brecher, the author of the invaluable collection of Schindler survivor testimony, Schindler’s Legacy, that she “wouldn’t even find a spot where it was now.”55 Such acts greatly annoyed the SS, who resented the special treatment that Jewish workers got at Emalia.56
In fact, keeping the SS at bay was one of Oskar’s greatest challenges. Edith Wertheim said that Oskar installed a bell to warn the workers when a Wehrmacht or SS inspection team came into the factory. Henry Slam-ovich added that when the SS visited Emalia, Oskar “wined them and dined them” when they arrived and then took them on an inspection of the facilities. He added that the SS “never bothered to hit anybody.”57 Dr. Stanley Robbin described what happened when a group of SS visitors from Płaszów visited the small room with three bunks that served as the inmates’ hospital. The SS men saw sixteen-year-old Sam Soldinger lying on one of the bunks complaining of a headache. They immediately wanted to know why he was in the hospital and wanted to kill him on the spot because he did not look ill. Oskar was able to talk them out of murdering Sam, who later settled in Phoenix, Arizona.58
And though Oskar usually did not have a lot to say after the war about his humanitarian efforts, he did go into some detail about a few of his deeds in a 1955 report he wrote in Buenos Aires about his experiences. The most famous story, which Thomas Keneally discussed in some detail in his novel, centered around a Schindlerjude named Lamus. One day Göth and a group of SS officers from Płaszów were inspecting the facilities at Emalia. Göth spotted Lamus pushing a wheelbarrow across the factory yard and thought he was moving too slowly. He ordered his bodyguard, SS-Rottenführer Franz Grün, to shoot Lamus on the spot. Grün began to position Lamus against an outside factory wall for execution while Göth and his entourage continued their inspection of the sub-camp. In the meantime, someone from one of the factory buildings who had seen everything rushed up to Oskar’s office to tell him of the coming execution. Oskar said that he rushed down stairs and “bought his [Lamus’s] life for a liter of vodka, literally one minute before the intended shooting.”59
On another occasion, two Gestapo officers showed up to arrest Ignacy and Chaja Wohlfeiler and their three children for purchasing illegal Aryan papers. Oskar met the two agents and showed them upstairs to his office, where he wined and dined them. Oskar said that “three hours later two tipsy Gestapo men left the factory without the Wohlfeil-ers and without incriminating documents.”60 Chaja Wohlfeiler lived to play a modestly important role at the end of the Schindler saga. On May 8, 1945, it was she who embraced the first Russian soldier who helped liberate Brünnlitz.61
One Friday, Eduard Danziger and his brother, two Orthodox Jews, accidentally damaged one of the presses at Emalia. Oskar was away at the time and one of the sub-camp’s spies reported the accident to Göth. He decided to hang the two brothers at Płaszów that evening to serve as an example to the other inmates. News of the planned execution spread quickly through the camp. In the meantime, Oskar had returned to Emalia and learned of the incident and the planned hangings. He immediately drove the two miles to Płaszów and somehow persuaded Göth to grant both men clemency, who were immediately returned to Emalia and safety.62
But there were also other stories from Schindlerjuden that were not as frightening and underscored the uniqueness of life in Schindler’s sub-camp. Julius Eisenstein remembered, for example, the time he was playing soccer at Emalia and Oskar came up and asked, “How come you didn’t give the ball to this guy?”63 Julius added that by the time Emalia was finally closed in the fall of 1944, we were “spoiled and felt . . . liberated.”64 He thought that life in Emalia was heaven compared to the hell of Płaszów: “We ate a little better and we didn’t get a beating every day.”65 And though he was not on the final list for Brünnlitz, he felt that it was the physical strength that he had been able to preserve at Emalia that helped him survive his forced march to the Flossenbürg concentration camp at the end of the war. These sentiments were shared by other Schindler Jews who did not make it to Brünnlitz.66
The inmates even found time for romance. When Irene Hirschfeld (Irena/Irka Scheck) arrived at Emalia, she was given a job carrying heavy metal pots on boards for drying after they had been dipped in enamel. She soon lost this job because she kept dropping the pots and was assigned to a nighttime floor sweeping detail. But she never forgot her femininity. Irene had a sheet and pillow case, from which she made a uniform and dyed it blue. She also had a pair of shoes and asked an inmate to make sandals for her from an old pocketbook. She said she “felt so dressed up, you have no idea!”67 The reason for her attention to her looks was her new husband, Milton Hirschfeld. The couple had been secretly married in the ghetto and were able to walk and hold hands together in an enclosed yard at Emalia. Milton, who worked in the machine shop, made a comb and a signet ring for Irene. She later lost the ring at Auschwitz. Irene always thanked Oskar Schindler for the special times she had alone with Milton in Emalia. “The towers were full of Germans with machine guns, but they never used them.” After the war, the Hirschfelds settled briefly in Paris, where they became reacquainted with Oskar Schindler; they ultimately settled in Oceanside, New York, on Long Island.68
Lola Feldman Orzech had a boyfriend at Emalia who worked at the N.K.F. factory next door. She said she was able to spend about half an hour each day with him. She added that though she was usually not hungry at Emalia, she was always “dead tired” and only had the energy to “smooch” with her boyfriend. Afterwards, she “went to bed,” or, as she put it, “to hay.”69 But Lola also remembered the flirtations of a friend at Emalia, Herta Nussbaum. Herta’s husband worked at Kabelwerk and when Oskar Schindler began to flirt with her, she flirted back, hoping to get her husband transferred to Emalia. According to Lola, Herta spoke fluent German, “was blond, zaftig [Yiddish; well rounded], busty, but she had good legs.” And her harmless flirtations with Oskar worked, because he soon found a job for Herta’s husband at Emalia.70 This is not the only time Oskar flirted with his female Jewish workers. One Schindlerjude made a point of telling me that Oskar made serious advances towards her, though out of respect for her I will not reveal her name.
Schindler Jew Barry Tiger (Berl Teiger) offers a different twist to Schindler’s life at Emalia, where he had an apartment. Barry had various jobs at Emalia, including cleaning up after Oskar’s parties. “They left a mess, but those were some good parties.” As Barry told Elinor Brecher: “There were bottles all over the place—they did a lot of boozing—and SS uniforms. And you could find some leftovers there, too: cake and sandwiches. I saw [Schindler] with women. He was a lady-killer.”71
But when Oskar invited Amon Göth to a party, it was usually at his apartment on Straszewskiego 7/2. It was more luxurious and away from the factory. Oskar was well aware of Göth’s murderous ways when he was drunk and he did everything possible to keep him away from his Jewish workers. Emilie Schindler, who despised Göth, remembered one evening of heavy drinking with Göth and other SS officers. As the evening wore on and the SS guests got drunk, there was a knock on the door. It was an army major whom Oskar had invited to the party. Göth, drunk as usual, staggered over to the officer, who was much shorter than he was, and asked scornfully, “Who are you, you ridiculous midget?” The atmosphere changed quickly from one of friendly banter to tension and many guests began to leave, fearing Göth’s rage. “You army types,” Göth screamed at the major, “You think your hands are clean. You are such aristocrats, you fight with gallantry . . . you don’t stick your noses into the carrion. . . . You cowards, you claim to keep your souls clean while we have to act as your guardian angels and watch your backs.”72
But Oskar had to put up with Göth’s tirades and other murderous flaws because he desperately needed his support to maintain his protective cocoon at Emalia. To a point, though, one could argue that the positive, moderate atmosphere that Oskar Schindler created at Emalia for his Jewish workers was simply a good investment in better production. And there is no doubt that this was true. Well fed, modestly secure workers performed much better than those who lived in constant fear for their lives. And if they produced well, Schindler would make more money. But something happened in 1943 that put Schindler’s efforts into a different light: his decision to begin to work first as a courier for the Relief and Rescue Committee of Budapest (Va’ada; Va’adat ha-Ezra ve-ha-Hatsala be-Budapest), which had been created two years earlier to help smuggle Jews out of Poland and Slovakia, and later for the Joint Rescue Committee (JRC) of the Jewish Agency of Palestine, an organ of the Yishuv, or Jewish community of Palestine that had absorbed Va’ada in early 1943. This involved not only dangerous trips to Budapest to meet with JRC representatives but also work with its representatives, who came to Kraków to try to gain more information about the fate of Jews in the General Government. Oskar also helped smuggle money, goods, and letters for Jews in Płaszów.
Abwehr, the Jewish Agency, and Schindler’s Missions to Turkey and Hungary
The link between Oskar Schindler’s growing sense of humanity towards his Jewish workers and his ties to Abwehr, particularly as they related to his later work with the Jewish Agency, is intriguing. It is difficult to determine the impact, if any, of his trip there for Abwehr in the fall of 1940 on the Jewish Agency’s decision to approach him about a similar trip later. But his trip to Turkey for Abwehr did seem to secure his reputation as someone who was decisive and willing to take some chances for Admiral Canaris’s organization. It also got him into trouble with German authorities in Kraków. Janina Olszewska, who ran Oskar’s Emalia sales room in Kraków, said that the Gestapo arrested him in late 1941 in part because of “his strange contacts with the attaché in Turkey . . . and his dealings with the Polish and Jewish people.”73
Oskar provided some details about his Abwehr mission to Turkey in 1940 in his 1951 letter to Fritz Lang. In addition, Josef “Sepp” Aue, Oskar’s Czech Abwehr colleague, also mentioned his 1940 mission in his interrogation statements to the Czech secret police after World War II. Schindler told Lang that he was approached by Colonel Reiche, the head of Abwehr operations in Breslau, about a problem the Abwehr chief was having in Turkey. He asked Oskar to go to Ankara to see whether he could do something to resolve the conflict between the Reich diplomatic corps, the Wehrmacht, the SD (Sicherheitsdienst der Reichführer-SS), the Nazi Party’s counterespionage and intelligence service, and the Reich Propaganda Ministry (ProMi, Propagandaministerium, shortened title of Joseph Goebbels’s Reich Ministry for Volk Enlightenment and Propaganda, Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda). Reiche was concerned that the conflict between these organizations was affecting the gathering and flow of intelligence information from Turkey, a vital field of Abwehr operations, to Canaris’s headquarters in Berlin. Abwehr’s difficulties, though, were much more complex than this.74
According to Oskar, the real problem centered around reserve Abwehr officers attached to the embassy in Ankara who were interested only in protecting their comfortable life style. They were affected by the “diplomats disease” and ran Abwehr operations in Ankara like “vegetable traders.” Protected by their diplomatic immunity, these Abwehr officers paid for news in their favorite cafés regardless of its value to Admiral Ca-naris’s organization. They were driven by a desire to “keep up the good life of diets of Edelvaluta (hard currency) and a career far from all fronts.” But Abwehr’s agents in Turkey were also hurt by conflicts with other German intelligence gathering organizations. Oskar told Lang that by the time he arrived in Ankara, Abwehr’s operatives in Turkey were either dead, back in the Reich, or working for the SD, the SS intelligence service. There were almost no Abwehr transmissions coming from Ankara via Hamburg to Berlin. Previous efforts to straighten out Ab-wehr’s problems in the Turkish capital had fallen prey to local Nazi Party infighting. So Abwehr sent Oskar Schindler to Ankara to straighten out the mess.75
Yet there was more to Abwehr’s failures in Turkey than lazy agents. Abwehr intelligence operations abroad often overlapped, and Turkey was no exception.76 In addition, there were conflicts with various Nazi Party organizations that not only affected Oskar Schindler’s attitudes towards the SS, the Gestapo, and other Nazi groups, but also helped explain their own suspicions about him. In 1943, a Luftwaffe intelligence officer noted that spies in Ankara working for the Nazi Party’s Auslandsorganisation (AO; Foreign Organization), which oversaw and coordinated Nazi Party organizations abroad, were “dilettantes lacking completely in know-how and experience.”77 In the field, the difficulties between Abwehr, the SD, and the AO centered around efforts by these agencies to win over each other’s agents to their foreign intelligence gathering operations, which caused security lapses.78
These developments, however, only mirrored another issue that affected German intelligence gathering world-wide, the struggle between the SD and Abwehr for control over Germany’s intelligence gathering apparatus. Reinhard Heydrich, backed by Heinrich Himmler, had fought for years to gain control of the Reich’s foreign intelligence gathering network. After the creation of the RSHA in the fall of 1939, the SD’s old Branch III, Ausland, now became RSHA Branch VI, Foreign Intelligence. By the time Oskar Schindler was sent to Ankara, the struggle was in full bloom. The situation in Turkey was particularly sensitive because of efforts by Germany and the Allies to draw Turkey into their respective camps militarily. Moreover, Turkey’s geographic and strategic location made it a vital source of information gathering for the Balkans, the Soviet Union, and the Middle East.79
Walter Schellenberg, an SD officer who later came to head RSHA VI, said in his memoirs that by 1940 Heydrich had grown deeply suspicious of Canaris and Abwehr. From Heydrich’s perspective, Canaris and Ab-wehr were unreliable for counterintelligence work. Heydrich thought that Canaris had revealed the date for the German invasion of Western Europe to the Allies and thought that the admiral would ultimately pay a price for this. Oskar Schindler’s mission to Turkey in the fall of 1940 should be seen in this competitive light. And based on his statements to Fritz Lang in 1951, Schellenberg’s assessment of Canaris was correct. Heydrich and Schellenberg had nothing to worry about, at least from Abwehr.80
The intense conflicts in Turkey between the SD, Abwehr, and other German intelligence-gathering organizations not only reflected the struggle between Himmler, Heydrich, and Canaris but also underscored the importance of Turkey to Hitler and Germany. Its strategic position and chrome resources kept it at the forefront of German efforts to keep neutral Turkey from aligning itself with Great Britain. Hitler had sent the veteran diplomat Franz von Papen to Ankara because he thought he possessed the necessary “finesse and intrigue” to keep Turkey from drifting into the Allied camp.81 Von Papen complained that AO and Abwehr agents, though, were constantly “getting in each other’s way” and on occasion “denounced each other’s agents to the Turkish police.”82 Ultimately, Abwehr learned it could best protect its foreign operatives if they resigned their Nazi Party membership and stopped contacts with AO’s agents abroad.83
