Oskar Schindler, page 52
In early May 1944, the Heinkel operations at Budzyvń were moved to Mielec, about a hundred miles northeast of Kraków. Schindler Jew Francisco Wichter said that about 950 Jews worked at Heinkel’s “United East” Flugzeugwerk in Mielec. He was not certain about the components he helped manufacture, but speculated they might have been for V-1 and V-2 rockets. On the other hand, Schindlerjude Sam Birenzweig remembered helping install windshields on aircraft at Mielec.40 But Wichter and the other Heinkel Jewish workers would soon move again as part of Hermann Göring’s “Fighter Staff” plan to shift vital aircraft production to bomb-proof underground factories. Though run by Karl Otto Saur, the head of the Technical Office in Albert Speer’s Ministry for Armaments and Munitions, WVHA’s Hans Kammler oversaw the construction of the new aircraft factories. Kammler worked closely with Gerhard Maurer, who supplied the new Fighter Staff factories with concentration camp labor.41
Soon after the move to Mielec, the Fighter Staff coordinators began to make plans to transfer Heinkel’s Aircraft Company/Works (Flugzeugwerk) operations to the Fighter Staff’s new underground factory in the Wieliczka salt mines, about ten miles miles east of Kraków. Jewish workers would be drawn from the Flugzeugwerk and Płaszów to build the camp, which was named Wilhelmsburg, and then the factory below it. By early June 1944, workers in Wieliczka had constructed the first parts of the Heinkel He 219 Uhu (Owl), one of the most versatile but underproduced aircraft in the Luftwaffe. But by August, with the increased threat of bomb attacks from the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force and the advance of the Red Army, the factory was closed. But even if Wieliczka had not been threatened by the Americans and the Russians, there were serious questions about the wisdom of putting an aircraft factory in a former salt mine. Francisco Wichter and Sam Biren-zweig commented on the damage that the salt did to aircraft and machine metal. Some of Wieliczka’s Jewish workers were sent to Płaszów, Groß Rosen, Mauthausen, and other camps. The factory itself was moved to Austria, along with some of the other skilled workers.42
Josef Leipold was in charge of the Jewish labor camps at the Heinkel operations in Budzyvń and Wielizcka. When the Fighter Staff shut down its operations at the salt mines, Leipold joined Göth’s staff in Płaszów as an adjutant, though he was still involved with tearing down the barracks and packing up the machinery at Wieliczka. Noah Stockmann remained with Leipold to oversee Jewish workers at the salt mines. Before he came to Płaszów, Stockmann had gained quite a reputation for kindness. Originally from Brest Litovsk, Stockmann was a former Polish army officer who, along with sixty other captured POWs, were permitted to wear their uniforms at Budzyvń. Leipold thought this would enable him to distinguish the former POWs from other prisoners.43 Stockmann did everything he could to make living conditions tolerable in Budzyvń. He was, for example, able to arrange for the prisoners to get unleavened bread for a Seder ceremony during Pesach (Passover) in the spring of 1944. 44
Sam Birenzweig, who worked briefly for Stockmann at Wieliczka, remembered him as “a marvelous guy.” Stockmann was uncomfortable selecting workers for life and death, so he told them the truth. The work at Wieliczka would really be hard. If someone was too sick or old to work, he said, they would be put on one of the frequent transports that left the camp. In this way, Birenzweig explained, Stockmann put the burden of life and death on the shoulders of each prisoner. But Stockmann’s popularity was probably the cause of his downfall. Once the group of Schindler males arrived at Groß Rosen, Marcel Goldberg found a way to have Stockmann taken off of the list.45
Questions of Favoritism and Schindler’s Lists
But before any of this happened, Goldberg had to prepare for the final departures of the 1,000 Jews originally on “Schindler’s Lists.” By the second week of October 1944, only about 7,000 Jews remained in Płaszów. And though Oskar Schindler had only just received final permission to open his factory in Brünnlitz and to move seven hundred men and three hundred women from Płaszów, the two lists indicate that Goldberg had given quite a lot of thought to who would be on them. For one thing, the lists are unusual in that there are so many similar surname groupings on it. Though Oskar did not get permission for the move until late September or early October, Goldberg must have known about his general plans well before this. This is the only way to explain his success in putting certain individuals, their families, and their friends on the list. In little more than two months, Płaszów’s inmate population had been reduced by almost 13,000 people. To protect the people he wanted on the list, Goldberg had to take great care to keep them off the large transports that were leaving Płaszów. It was one thing to protect the random OD man, Kapo, or Blockälteste; it was quite another matter to protect his or her family or friends.
In some ways, the list that Raimund Tisch gave Marcel Goldberg typifies the lumping together of families that appeared on the larger Schindler transport lists. At one point, Madritsch had 3,000 Jews working for him at Płaszów, and when Schindler asked Madritsch and Titsch for a last-minute list of names, they named the people they were most familiar with: their supervisors and other Jews they had relied upon to help administer the large Madritsch sewing concern in the camp. Moreover, in comparing the Madritsch list with the two “Schindler’s Lists,” it is apparent that there was a concerted effort to put the names of the families of the sixty Madritsch workers on these larger lists. Leib and Estera Hudes, for example, were on Madritsch’s list; two other family members, Izak and Naftali Hudes, joined them on “Schindler’s Lists.” Natan and Leontyna Stern were on Madritsch’s list; Aszer, Henryk, and Sala Stern joined them on the larger lists. This meant that the original Madritsch list of sixty was expanded to sixty-eight once extra family members were added. And if you subtract the seven people on the original Madritsch list who did not make it to Brünnlitz, then over 20 percent of those on the Madritsch list were put together with other family members on “Schindler’s List.”46
These family ties were extremely important for survival in Płaszów. Time and again, Schindlerjuden told me how they were given better jobs or other special considerations because of their family or personal connections, though they often did not word it quite this way. Personal connections of even the most modest sort could ultimately translate into survival and life for many Schindler Jews. This does not mean that everyone who ultimately got on “Schindler’s Lists” had such ties or influence. Many were just lucky. Dr. Moshe Bejski, for example, told me that he had no idea how he got on the list. He learned at the last minute that he was on it but not his two brothers, Izrael and Urysz. He told Goldberg to take him off the list if they were not on it. Later that evening, Goldberg told him to bring his two brothers with him to the train.47 On the other hand, Ryszard Horowitz admitted that his family were put on the list because “they were well connected.”48
Ties to Marcel Goldberg were also important. Dr. Aleksander Bieber-stein said in his memoirs that though he, his wife, and his daughter were on the lists, Goldberg took them off, despite efforts by Mietek Pemper to change Goldberg’s mind. Instead, Dr. Bieberstein said, they were replaced by people who had bribed Goldberg. Dr. Bieberstein was put back on the male list in Groß Rosen after the intervention of Pemper and Itzhak Stern. His wife and daughter were not so lucky. He was also unable to save his nephew, Dr. Artur Bieberstein, from being deported to Flossenbürg.49 With the exception of one young relative, Emalia’s Abraham Bankier was also alone on the list.
The same was true of Josef Bau. But he was alone on it because his wife, Rebecca, who had done manicures for Amon Göth, went to Mietek Pemper and arranged to have herself taken off the female “list” so that her husband, Josef, could be put on the male list. Some time earlier, Rebecca had intervened to save Pemper’s mother from being shot by SS-Rottenführer Franz Grün. Rebecca was walking through the camp and saw Grün about to shoot Pemper’s mother. Rebecca told Grün that if Göth found out he had killed Pemper’s mother, the commandant would probably have Grün executed. Rebecca Bau later explained that she had made this sacrifice because “my husband was more important to me than I was, and I wasn’t afraid.”50 Josef did not learn of Rebecca’s sacrifice until he reached Groß Rosen. In 1971, Josef Bau testified against Grün at a trial in Vienna. The Austrian court sentenced the brutal Płaszów guard to nine years imprisonment for the murder of Bau’s father, Abraham, and other Jews. Fourteen years earlier, a Polish court in Kraków had sentenced Grün to life imprisonment.51
Aleksander Bieberstein stated bitterly in his memoirs that many of Emalia and Płaszów’s most prominent physicians were put on the list because they were friends of Goldberg. This included Dr. Chaim Hilfstein, a Jewish physician at Emalia; Dr. Leon Groß, Dr. Szaja Händler, Dr. Ferdi-nand Lewkowicz, and Dr. Matylda Löw. On a practical basis, it would seem wise to have as many experienced physicians as you could on any list for a labor camp, particularly in light of SS concern with hygiene. But favoritism did have an impact here. There were eleven members of the Groß family on the list, six Lewkowicz family members, and three Hilfsteins. On the other hand, Dr. Händler was alone on the list and there were only two members of the Löw family on it. Power and influence could not totally protect a family from the killings and murders that had occurred constantly in Kraków and Płaszów since the war began. In other words, even if one was in some sort of leadership or supervisory position at Płaszów, this did not guarantee your survival or that of your family. The vast majority of the Jews on the two “Schindler’s Lists” were either there alone or paired with someone else with the same surname. Most of their relatives had already been murdered in the Holocaust.52
But this perception of favoritism and corruption surrounding the creation of “Schindler’s List” angered a lot of Jews. Aleksander Bieberstein said that “through Goldberg rich OD men and prominent prisoners got on the list.”53 Richard and Lola Krumholz, who had been with Oskar Schindler “since the beginning,” presumed they would be on the “list.” But Goldberg gave their places to others. Maurice Markheim thought he got on the list at the last minute because his cousin, Herman Feldman, “knew some bigshots.” Henry Salmovich never understood how he got on the list. “Usually, the people from Kraków got on it because they had a lot of pull. All those bigshots from the camp—the Jewish police—were from Kraków. I didn’t have money or connections.”54
Jack Mintz was particularly critical of Goldberg, and even Oskar Schindler, about this. He said that many people thought that “Schindler was almighty God, but he wasn’t.” Though he thought Oskar was “a nice guy,” once he got to Brünnlitz, Mintz realized that some of those selected for the list were less than desirable people. “I would say if you selected from the eleven hundred, maybe three hundred should go in a concentration camp after the war. There were a lot of crooks and Kapos [on the list].” He blamed Goldberg for this, who had “more power [over the list] than Schindler. Schindler asked for the people he knew, but the rest he didn’t know.”55 Such judgements are harsh, but they reflect the frustrations of some of the Schindlerjuden who felt so powerless in this critical life-and-death situation.
Yet how truthful are these accusations? In other words, is it possible to determine how many people were on the list because of influence or bribery? It is possible to have some idea of the most important Jews in Płaszów from the more detailed published testimonies such as Aleksander Bieberstein’s Zagłda Żydów w Krakowie (Extermination of the Jews of Kraków), Stella Müller-Madej’s A Girl on Schindler’s List, and Elinor Brecher’s excellent collection of Schindlerjuden testimony, Schindler’s Legacy. There is also an interesting index of postwar testimony collected by the Polish Ministry of the Interior’s Main Commission for the Investigation of Hitlerite Crimes in Poland (Głownej Komisji Badania Zbroni Hitlerowakich w Polsce) by Magdalena Kunicka-Wyrzykowska, Indek Imienny Więżniów obpzu w Płaszowie (Name Index of the Prison Camp in Płaszów). It contains the names of a number of Schindler Jews and a brief history of their experiences during the Holocaust, including the role they played in Płaszów or elsewhere. If you combine these sources with the individual interviews I did with Schindler survivors, it is possible to come up with a pretty good list of the most important Jewish figures in Płaszów. But here the situation gets tricky. For one thing, it would be incorrect to assume that there was something wrong with being on the list because one was in a position of some influence at Płaszów. For every unsavory character like Marcel Goldberg, there were many, many caring Jewish “Prominents” in Płaszów who used their positions to help others. On the other hand, it is also easy to understand the anger and frustration of those who did not make it on to one of Oskar Schindler’s lists because, at least from their perspective, they did not have the power or valuables to get themselves or their loved ones on them.56
Yet it is possible to identify certain groupings of people on the list and at least determine whether some of them were people of influence. But the multiple, changing “Schindler’s Lists” are what make such an analysis difficult beyond even the vaguest implication that to be part of such a surname grouping implied family connections or something immoral. Marcel Goldberg drew up two separate lists for the seven hundred men and the three hundred women who were to be sent to Brünnlitz in the fall of 1944. During my research I discovered several “Schindler’s Lists” from the fall of 1944 through the spring of 1945 in the Auschwitz State Museum. These include the original transport list for the men, dated October 21, 1944, from Groß Rosen to Brünnlitz, and two separate female lists for three hundred women dated October 22 (the date the women arrived at Auschwitz from Płaszów) and a separate female Auschwitz to Brünnlitz list dated November 12, 1944. The problem with each of these lists is some of the Schindler men on the Płaszów-Groß Rosen list were taken off by Goldberg and replaced when the seven hundred men arrived at Groß Rosen. The same is true for the list of three hundred women on the Płaszów-Auschwitz transport. In other words, though the number of people removed from the male and female “Schindler’s Lists” while in transit to Brünnlitz via Groß Rosen and Auschwitz probably numbered no more than twenty to thirty, the fact remains that the lists drawn up by Marcel Goldberg in Płaszów were different from the lists of men and women who finally reached Schindler’s camp in the Sudetenland in October and November 1944.
Further complicating matters, the only two alphabetized lists we have are based on two April 18, 1945, lists that contain the names of 801 men and 297 women. Between the fall of 1944 and the spring of 1945, ninety-eight new people were added to Schindler’s lists. The archives and individuals who claim to have the original “Schindler’s List” in reality just have the April 18, 1945, list. This is the “list” that Marcel Goldberg has on a clipboard in one scene from Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. But why the difference in numbers between the fall 1944 lists and the April 18, 1945, lists? Between January 29, 1945, and April 11, 1945, three transports arrived at Brünnlitz from German camps at Golleschau (eighty-one Jews), Landskron (six Jews), and Geppersdorf (thirty Jews). Some of the Jews on these transports were either dead when they arrived at Brünnlitz or died a few days later. In addition, several Schindler Jews died while in Brünnlitz or were sent to other camps. Beyond this, there were several Jews, such as Wrozlavsky (Benjamin) Breslauer and Alfred Schonfeld, who simply “trickled” into Brünnlitz during the latter months of the war. But the April 18, 1945, list is not the final “Schindler’s List.” There was a final list made up on May 8, 1945, the last day before Oskar and Emilie Schindler fled Brünnlitz. It is identical to the April 18 list though quite messy, indi- cating that it was probably done in haste. The April 18 and May 8 women’s lists are alphabetized while the male lists for these dates was not. Fortunately, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s (USHMM) archives has alphabetized the male and female lists of April 18, 1945, and blended them into one list. Aleksandra Kobielec of the Groß Rosen Museum did the same for the male and female lists, but did not combine them into one list.57
The USHMM list does enable us to look at one list and analyze its surname groupings. There were several large groupings on the list made up of families from prominent Jews, though they were more the exception than the rule. Most of the surname groupings on the list ranged from three to four individuals, and there is no way to know whether all the surname groupings were related. On the other hand, it is possible to determine from other sources which of these groupings were families and which were not. Regardless, it is interesting to note that of the 1,098 names on the April 18, 1945 lists, 545 were joined with those with identical surnames. We also know that the 98 new names added to the lists in 1945, as well as the 50 to 60 “Budzyners,” were all males without relatives in Płaszów. This means that close to 60 percent of the individuals on “Schindler’s List” were joined together with people, male and female, with identical surnames. Many of them were paired with someone with an identical surname, though there were also some very large surname groupings, many of them families. There were two groupings of eleven identical surnames, two with nine identical surnames, and quite a few with four, five, or six individuals with the same surnames. There were also linkages other than surnames. Stella Müller-Madej’s extended family, for example, included the Grunbergs. So the prospect of even larger surname and/or family groupings on the list is probable. In the end, there is no doubt that there was a concentrated effort by Goldberg to save as many members of the same families as possible.58
