Oskar Schindler, page 42
But Oskar, who tended to ramble, had still not answered their question about a “universal decree.” Springmann and Kasztner had difficulty believing that mid-level SS leaders could initiate such crimes without orders from above. Oskar said that there was no doubt that someone from above “ordered the annihilation,” though he doubted that their goal was “total annihilation.”112 The two JRC representatives then wondered whether the Jews still alive in Poland had a chance to survive the war. Oskar told them that he was sure that those still alive would survive the war and mentioned Himmler’s decision several weeks earlier to halt the murderous assault against Jewish workers in forced labor situations throughout occupied Poland. Oskar interpreted this to mean that the tendency was obvious: “One wants to preserve the Jewish work force.” He noted that over the past few months, the “smaller camps were liquidated and able Jewish workers from the province were concentrated around industrial centers.”113
Christopher Browning, in his comments on this shift in policy, wrote that the camps designated for preservation “continued in operation until the approach of the Red Army forced closure, and even then the inmates were not killed on the spot but rather evacuated westward. Moreover, within at least some camps, the murderous regimen was significantly moderated over time. The massive selections and gratuitous killings were curtailed, and death from exhaustion, malnutrition, and disease dropped significantly.” Browning called this a new period of “precarious stability.” 114 Oskar Schindler had better insight into this matter than anyone imagined at the time.
Oskar went on to explain that Himmler’s decision to stop the liquidation of the slave labor camps was brought about by the intervention of the Military Economics and Armaments Office (Wirtschaftsstellen; Wehrwirtschafts-und Rüstungsamt). He told Springmann and Kasztner that he had informed the Military Economics and Armaments Office in Kraków that his Jewish workforce produced “40 percent more than Poles.”115 He added that Germany’s military needs had placed a heavy burden on the entire Reich and millions had been drawn from the labor force to fight. Himmler’s recent decree halting the destruction of Jewish workers in the forced labor camps had, according to Schindler, addressed this issue. Kasztner and Springmann were skeptical, and wanted to know whether Himmler’s new order would be respected. Oskar replied, “Somewhat.” He went on to explain that some SS leaders had some problems breaking the habit of shooting from ten to one hundred Jews a day, an obvious allusion to Amon Göth. He said that the situation regarding the Jews that worked in military factories was somewhat different than those in the ghettos because they, to a certain degree, were protected by the military inspectors of each factory. He added that the military had not “identified themselves with the methods of the SS.” Oskar added that he knew of many instances where German soldiers had saved Jews. The Wehrmacht, he stated, had not wanted to submit to the order [Commissar order of June 6, 1941] to shoot Jewish POWs. The SS then insisted that these prisoners be turned over to them, and then shot them. But before the SS did this, they “tested them: if they were circumcised, they were executed.”116
Oskar, unfortunately, had already bought into the myth that became so prevalent among the German public after World War II: that the Wehrma-cht had played no role in the mass murders of Jews and other war crimes. This has been substantively disproved by any number of scholars, though some diehards still cling to the myth that the Wehrmacht was an ageless German institution that had been above the horrors committed by the SS. To them, “after the war, the Wehrmacht became every [German] man’s bill to a clean conscience.”117 But for anyone who has spent time investigating the implementation of the Final Solution, particularly in occupied parts of the Soviet Union, the role of the Wehrmacht in the mass killings of Jews and others should come as no surprise. The SS and its Einsatz-gruppen could not have murdered the hundreds of thousands it did without the help of the military.
Springmann and Kasztner then asked Oskar whether he knew how many Jews had been killed since the outbreak of the war. Schindler said that this was difficult to answer and the only figure he could give them was one that he got from the SS: from 4 to 4.5 million. Oskar stated that he thought these figures were exaggerated because the SS seemed to take pride in these numbers. He told them that he had heard one SS officer brag about the murder of 18,000 Jews in one afternoon. Another officer quickly tried to “top this with a different or similar story.”118 But the most deadly phase of the Holocaust was already past; it is therefore quite possible that the Germans could have murdered as many as 4 to 4.5 million Jews by the time Schindler met with the JRC representatives in Budapest.
Oskar did not want to let these gruesome details interfere with social matters, so he tried to ease the tension of the moment by ordering liqueurs for everyone in his hotel room. This led Kasztner and Spring-mann to admit their “inward anxiety” about the meeting. They asked Schindler’s forgiveness as they explained their feelings to him. “Mr. X, forgive us. We sit here and listen to you with apparent calmness. But would you believe that we are not all so calm inwardly.” Oskar was taken back by their comment and took it to mean that they did not trust him. He tried to reassure Springmann and Kasztner that they could trust him and took out his passport and his identity card, which had his photograph on it. He told them that it was “issued by the highest military office in Poland,” which declared him to be the “manager of a military factory.” According to Oskar, his identity card gave him “full freedom to travel across the entire occupied territory.”119 But Oskar failed to grasp the fear both men had of being in German allied territory. Their fears were compounded because they were Jews dealing with a German spy whom they knew little about; Schindler’s impressive credentials probably only increased their anxiety.
But then Oskar took out a letter with “Jewish Forced Labor Camp at Z [Płaszów]. Leader of the S.S. and the Police” printed on the top. The letter, which was signed by “Mr. Y,” [Göth], stated that SS regulations required that all Jewish workers must be accompanied by guards with guns ready to fire whenever they go from Camp Z to their workplace. “Mr. Y” went on to say in the letter that he had personally discovered that Mr. X’s workers had gone to work [at Emalia] without an SS guard and, as a result, Mr. Y would no longer provide him with Jewish workers. Schindler told Kasztner and Springmann that the day he received this letter, he began his “friendship with this S.S. leader [Göth].”120 Schindler somehow thought the letter and his explanation about the nature of his “difficult and costly” relationship with Amon Göth would reassure Spring-mann and Kasztner. Yet, as we have already discussed, it is hard to believe that Schindler’s workers had somehow managed to walk the two miles from Płaszów to Emalia and back without SS escorts. The SS maintained rigid control over their inmates, particularly those who worked outside the camp.121
Oskar then told them that whenever he went to see Mr. Y after this, he would always bring him five or six bottles of French cognac, Göth’s favorite, which cost Schindler Zł 2,000 to Zł 3,000 ($625–$937.50) apiece on the black market. Schindler, who never mentioned Göth or Płaszów by name, added that Mr. Y had “at least 300,000 Jews on his conscience.” Oskar told them that he hunted with Göth and got drunk with him in an effort to try to make it clear to him that “the murder of the Jew [was] actually senseless and superfluous.” Oskar said that he thought his entreaties had made an impact on Mr. Y because since he had gotten to know him “not even 10 percent of the prior number [were] being shot in the camps overseen by him.” Oskar considered it a “great achievement” that he had convinced Mr. Y to let him use Jews in his factory again because SS leader Y was “famous for the fact that no Jews [left] his hands alive.”122
Schindler then lapsed into another criticism of the SS before Spring-mann and Kasztner steered him back to a question about what could be done to help the Jews in German-occupied territory. Oskar said that there were three possibilities: “to make money available, [to] send packages with food and medicine, and [to] try to influence the S.S. leaders.”123 To illustrate his first point, Schindler told Springmann and Kasztner that one of their Schaliachs (couriers) came to Kraków and wandered around for two days before discovering that Schindler was at Emalia. If he had not found Oskar there, he could not have delivered the Mantana (Hebrew, gift). Oskar sent the courier to Abraham Bankier, whom Oskar said had “a clear overview of the whole business.” Oskar added: “I can, without worrying, go away for four weeks, and know that he will faithfully substitute for me.”124
According to Schindler, Bankier then took care of the matter and turned it over to Dr. Hilfstein, who got it into Płaszów. Oskar went on to explain “how utterly complicated and dangerous it is to carry out such an operation.” It began with the courier’s demand for a receipt, something the Jewish Agency and its couriers always insisted on to insure that the funds were properly delivered. In this particular instance, Schindler and Bankier asked one of their office workers, Ms. Chawera, to witness the signing of the receipt, which she did not want to do because she was afraid it might be a trap. But there were other complications. For example, Schindler wanted to know what would happen if the courier was stopped by a guard, searched, and the receipt was found on him? The police or the SS would then want to know who gave the courier the money. Oskar said that everyone involved in the transfer of the Jewish Agency funds were “gambling with their lives.”125
He added that Bankier (“meine Jude”) was the only one at Emalia who knew about the funds from abroad. This is a bit contradictory; after all, Schindler had already mentioned that Dr. Hilfstein and Ms. Chawera knew some details about the illicit funds. It was, Oskar added, essential that only one or two “absolutely dependable people be let in on the secret, but only with the greatest of care, because among five Jews at least two [were] Konfidenten [Polish, konfident; agent or informer].”126 He was particularly suspicious of anyone involved with the “Hilfstelle,” evidently a reference to Dr. Michał Weichert’s controversial Jewish Aid Center (jüdische Unterstützungsstelle), the only Jewish aid agency permitted by the Germans to function in Kraków until the summer of 1943 and again during part of 1944.127 Oskar reported that on one occasion a “certain Dr.” from the “Hilfstelle” was given special permission by the SS to look into hygienic conditions of Jewish prisoners in surrounding camps and asked permission to visit Schindler’s sub-camp. Schindler called the Gestapo to see whether he should let the physician into the sub-camp. The Gestapo officer said of course he should because the physician in question was “a better Gestapo man” than himself!128
Finally, Oskar noted, very little of the money sent by Istanbul through Budapest ever reached Kraków, the implication being that much of the money somehow disappeared along the way. Consequently, Bankier, Hilf-stein, and others involved in its receipt wanted to be certain that it was distributed by “competent people.” Schindler assured Springmann and Kasztner that he did not mean to imply that people in Kraków were unappreciative of the Jewish Agency’s funds. It was, in fact, “a great blessing for the people.” They had bought flour with the money and on several occasions 3,000 to 4,000 loaves of extra bread. This not only meant extra food rations for the inmates but also forced the black market price of bread to drop from Zł 130 ($40.65) to Zł 40 to 50 ($12.50–$15.62) a loaf. Schindler, Bankier, and others were also able to buy eighty pairs of shoes for barefoot workers who were forced to get coal from the black market in winter.129
The conversation then shifted to a much more sensitive subject: the fate of Jewish children in the General Government. Springmann and Kasztner simply wanted to know whether any children were still alive there. Oskar replied: “Only a very few. They have indeed been exterminated.”130 Oskar estimated that about 90 percent of the children up through fourteen years had been “shot or gassed.” Some children, though, were still alive “by accident” because, until six weeks ago, there were still two children’s camps open. There were also children who remained alive because they had “special protection” or were “the children of the police or the Jewish OD men [jüdischer Ordungsdienst].”131 He knew, for example, of one Jew, “the protegé of an inspector” in Płaszów’s business office, who was able to save his two children because he was an OD man. “Thus only the children who belong to the Jewish police are in the Jewish camps.”132
Oskar said that the fate of the elderly was the same as that for children, particularly those older than fifty. Older inmates did everything they could to look younger, including dying their hair and wearing makeup. But most of those still alive in the camps were between ages fourteen and fifty.133 Schindler was quite sensitive to the question of age and survival. He noted in his 1945 report that he gave in to the requests of his workers to save their parents “even though many of them were not able to work.”134 In 1942 and 1943, he employed from two to three hundred “new workers,” even though he had no work for them. He paid the SS Zł 5 ($1.56) a day for these workers because he had to “maintain the reputation that [his] firm did not have enough laborers.” He estimated that it cost him Zł 720,000 ($225,000) to maintain this group of unemployable workers throughout the war.135
Kasztner and Springmann then wanted to know the location of those Jews still alive in Poland. Oskar said mainly in Auschwitz. He estimated that there were about 80,000 Jews in Auschwitz but did not know how many of the hundreds of thousands who had been deported there were still alive. His figures were remarkably accurate. Auschwitz records show that on December 31, 1943, there were 85,298 (55,785 men and 29,513 women) prisoners in Auschwitz I, II (Birkenau), and III (Buna-Monowitz). Springmann and Kasztner told Schindler they had heard that Auschwitz was an “extermination camp.” Oskar said that was possible, particularly for the “elderly and children.” He added that he had also heard that Jews were “gassed and burned there.” The Germans, he thought, had “perfected a scientific system there in order to avoid more Katyns,” a reference to the Soviet murder and burial of 4,143 Polish officers in Katyv forest in the spring of 1940. 136
Another issue raised by the Jewish Agency’s representatives was the question of Tiyyul or escape. Oskar said this would be very difficult because the camps are “very strictly guarded.” He explained that the Jewish OD did not want “to endanger their own positions” and, to prevent escapes, called roll two or three times a day to make sure that every inmate was accounted for. A more serious problem was the Jewish Konfidenten, or informers, who were the “most dangerous.” Oskar noted that one had to deal with five levels of police authority in the General Government: the Gestapo, the German police, the Polish police, the Ukrainian militia, and the Jewish OD men, and you could not bribe them all. But what if you did manage to escape and tried to reach Slovakia or Hungary? “But what if,” Oskar asked, “along the way you are stopped by a Polish police officer who was suspicious of you.” He earned Zł 150 ($46.87) a month and a third of his income came from money he found on Jews trying to escape. Consequently, the Polish police were constantly looking for Jews trying to escape or hide as Aryans to fill their own pockets.137
Oskar explained that the only Jews able to escape from Poland were those living outside of the camps. He knew, for example, of one instance in which eighteen extremely wealthy Jews bribed the driver of a German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront) truck, who took them to the Slovak border. The driver hid them in a double floor in the truck. It was stopped at the border, searched, and each of the Jews detained. Sixteen were executed on the spot and two others were returned to Poland. Oskar said that the two Jews who survived were informers. And he knew of hundreds of similar cases of escape attempts.138
Schindler was particularly critical of the Jewish OD men in the camps. “You know,” he told Springmann and Kasztner, “I lived in the old Austria and had more respect for Jews then than now.” He explained that the Jewish OD men in the camps “walk around elegantly dressed, almost like the people from the SS.” He added: “They beat their brethren with such devotion that I could not have imagined it.” He recounted a story he had heard about a women’s camp in Lemberg (today: Ukrainian, Lviv; Polish, Lwów), in which a female Jewish camp leader bashed in “fifty to sixty skulls” a week with a piece of wood. He went on: “As a German, I do not know if I would have been capable of conducting myself [like this] in a camp of Germans.”139 The camp Oskar was referring to was the Janówksa forced labor camp in the suburbs of Lviv, where 30,000 to 40,000 Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.140
It is difficult to know how Kasztner and Springmann reacted to Oskar’s criticism of other Jews because they tried to keep their own emotions out of their report. But his remarks did prompt them to ask again whether he thought a “Tiul” (Tiyyul), or rescue, was possible. Oskar said that you could rescue some people, but only individuals or groups of two or three, and then only after a great deal of preparation. If this was so, the two JRC representatives asked, did the Jews in the General Government have any money they could use to help themselves or could they “help themselves in other ways”? Oskar explained that some Jews had hidden a lot of money. He noted, for example, that during a recent body search at Emalia, which was made under threat of death, the SS discovered “six large laundry baskets with gold, dollars, diamonds, gold watches, złoty, etc.”141 These goods were seized without receipts and taken to Göth’s house, where a third of it “turned to dust,” meaning it disappeared into Göth’s pockets. The rest was turned over to the general SS camp fund. But Schindler admitted that there were only a few Jews with “hidden wealth” and it was often hidden in places now inaccessible to them. So it was important for the Jewish Agency to supply financial resources to help Jews in Płaszów and Emalia.142
Springmann and Kasztner then wanted to know whether it was possible to influence SS leaders in Poland to help Jews. Oskar never really answered this question. Instead, he lapsed into an overview of his own career. He mentioned that it disappointed him when the Nazis took over Czechoslovakia, which was one of the reasons he went to Poland. He was proud of the life he had built there, where he earned more than Zł 100,000 ($30,769) a month. He added that he “hoped to carry on” his business in “peace time as well.” This is the first hint Oskar gave of his postwar plans.143
