Oskar Schindler, page 76
The new agreement, which was dated November 13, was similar to the one that Page had originally drawn up with a few exceptions. Emilie had evidently signed over her power of attorney to Page and the contract was now in the names of Oskar and Emilie Schindler. It stated that they would receive $25,000 once Gosch decided to exercise his option to make the movie and another $25,000 on February 28, 1966, or on the date when filming began, whichever was earliest. The option date for Gosch had now been moved ahead by one year. Oskar would receive 80 percent of the advance and Emilie would receive 20 percent, but only after legal fees and other expenses were deducted from Oskar and Emilie’s advances. Oskar was still to receive 5 percent of the “Producer’s Profits,” though neither he nor Page were to be paid as consultants for the movie once filming began. On the other hand, Page would receive 2.5 percent of the “net profits” of the film and no less than 1.25 percent of the “Producer’s Profits.”38
Oskar returned from Paris revitalized and generally enthusiastic about the film despite some small frustrations over certain aspects of the contract. He thought these could be changed later but was annoyed because Page had taken Emilie’s contract from him “under false pretenses.” He considered Martin Gosch a real friend and, in a letter a few days after Christmas, he wrote him: “You have given me the nicest Christmas I can think of.” He had heard good reports from his Schindler Jews in Israel about Gosch’s trip there in November. He noted that Gosch’s personality and “unheard-of-initiative” deeply impressed them. Yet even in the midst of Oskar’s joy over the pace of the film’s development, he still wanted more specific details about Gosch’s trip to Israel and the movie itself, particularly as reports about the film had appeared in the press throughout the world.39
Oskar wrote Walter Pollack on December 30 that the film would be made by MGM with Martin Gosch as producer. It would be titled To the Last Hour. He expected filming to begin in London at the end of January; the following month the production company would move to Madrid, where they would film the outside shots. It would cost $9 million to make. He told Pollack: “I am happy, after vegetating the last years, to have reached my goal with perseverance.” Their mutual friends in Israel were equally pleased because the film would create “a historical monument for the Polish Jewish victims” of the Shoah.40
Oskar expected to be on hand for the filming in London and Madrid, yet still felt uneasy about the contracts he had signed for himself and Emilie and questions of historical accuracy. He wrote Dr. Bejski that though he had no reason to distrust Gosch, he had to remind himself that the film’s producer was “merely a free coworker of the president of MGM.” But, Oskar told Bejski, the only way the film could be a success was if they did not allow themselves to be “pushed aside altogether and, at least in the historical part” they should “develop a united obstinacy.” He assured the Israeli judge that he would pay attention to the question of historical accuracy “like a pointer (dog)” and would regularly keep him abreast of developments once filming began.41 Oskar and Bejski sensed almost from the beginning of the planning for the film that something was not quite right. Little did they know at the time that the film would never be made and that Gosch was not quite the honest, creative force that he seemed to be.
News of the film, To the Last Hour, began to appear in the press about a week before Oskar signed the contract in Paris. The New York Times did a small article on the film on November 8, 1964, though it said the film would be shot in Portugal, not Spain, and at MGM’s Elstree studio in Boreham Wood north of London. News of the film appeared in the Israeli press about a week later and, just before Christmas 1964, a lengthy article on it appeared in the Los Angeles Times. It reported that MGM had offered Richard Burton $750,000 to play the role of Oskar Schindler. Ma’ariv, Israel’s most prominent daily newspaper, also noted Gosch’s plans to have Burton play Schindler in the film. Oskar Schindler, the article went on, was a “hero in life, a hero in reality,” but Burton was a stage hero, a hero with makeup. But the article also noted that while Schindler received no reward for his heroism, Burton was to be paid $750,000 for his stage “heroism.” Several weeks later, Variety Weekly reported that Gosch and Koch, who would jointly write the film script, had just returned from a research trip to Poland where officials had tried to convince them to make the film using original locations. Several months earlier, Oskar had advised against this and told Page that there were plenty of factories in Germany that produced the same goods and had scenery similar to that in Brünnlitz.
There were also plenty of concentration camps in Bavaria, such as Dachau and Flossenbürg, that could duplicate the camps in Poland.42
Gosch wrote Oskar about his trip to Poland and Israel a month or so after he returned to California. However, he provided Oskar with far less information about his trip than he gave to the Israeli press and Variety Weekly. He also told reporters about the new Oskar Schindler Foundation and why he and Koch rejected the idea of shooting the film in Poland. Gosch told the Israeli-Polish newspaper, Nowiny i Kurier, that Oskar did not save just 1,300 people but at least 28,000. As he explained: “There are thousands of other Jews saved by him, who are now in other countries and owe their lives to the courage and sacrifice of this man.” Gregory Peck would play Oskar and Danny Kaye would play an Auschwitz prisoner. Both actors “declared that they would give their salaries for this movie to the ‘Schindler Foundation.’” The Schindler Foundation, Gosch went on, would be used to give out awards for “outstanding humanitarian acts,” and its funding would come from “ticket sales.” Profits from the film would also be given to the Schindler Foundation annually to insure that $20,000 would be “devoted to this noble purpose.” The Schindler Foundation prize would be “some kind of Nobel Prize from the movie industry.” Gosch hoped that the U.S. and Israeli governments would support the foundation, which would insure that history would remember and honor the great work of Oskar Schindler.43
But all Gosch told Oskar in a letter in mid-January 1965 about shooting in Poland was that there would simply be too many political and bureaucratic problems filming there. Instead, he thought MGM’s new studio in Madrid would be a perfect site for the outdoor shots, and most of the interior shots could be done in London (Boreham Wood). On the other hand, Gosch told Variety Weekly that Polish officials had made a “big pitch” for the film, which he had rejected because of the weather and because there were “few signs of the purported abatement of government controls.” Gosch felt that Poland was still a pretty closed society when compared to Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia and he did not want his movie to be the “guinea pig” to see how open Poland had become. Gosch and Koch found a visit to the site of Schindler’s former factory in Kraków particularly troubling. When they asked whether they might film the interior and exterior of the factory, their guide told them that this would be prohibited. Gosch said, “This seemed pretty silly . . . if it’s an example of the problems we would face.” The Variety Weekly article ended by saying that James Garner would be one of the stars in the film.44
Gosch followed up his January 15, 1965, letter to Oskar with another one ten days later that told him about his efforts to pressure the West German government to acknowledge Schindler’s wartime heroics by honoring him through a pension or a substantial contribution to the Oskar Schindler Humanities Foundation. He told Oskar that he had just had lunch at MGM with Dr. Irene Weinrowsky, the press and cultural attaché of the West German Legation in Los Angeles. Gosch said he understood that Schindler was not entitled to a pension until he was sixty-five. However, he warned Dr. Weinrowsky that the West German government might find itself embarrassed if other governments were the first to recognize Oskar for his accomplishments. He explained “that the only way . . . Bonn could preserve its dignified face in the international spectrum would be to act before other nations, and not afterwards.” If West German authorities wished to make a one time gift to the Schindler Foundation, then the foundation could use the funds to hire Oskar in some capacity. As usual, Gosch reminded Oskar to keep this information confidential.45
Gosch wrote Schindler again two weeks later in response to a letter Oskar had written him on February 1. Schindler had included several newspaper clippings about the film in the German press. One discussed several programs that the state-run television station Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) was going to do on Schindler in March. Gosch told Oskar that such programs would violate his film contract. Television, Gosch went on, “should only be used to assist the film industry when it can do the most good.” He again reminded Schindler that media contacts should be directed to his office at MGM. Gosch immediately cabled the program director of Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Dr. Hans Joachim Lange, and told him that he, MGM, and Delbert Mann owned the exclusive rights to the life of Oskar Schindler.46
After chastising Schindler once more, Gosch went on to tell him that he had been in contact with Gunther von Hase, the Minister of Information in West Germany, who oversaw Westdeutscher Rundfunk. He hoped to use the conflict over WDR’s programs to pressure the West German government to do more to help Oskar: “I cannot permit them to make you into a national hero while still owing you a great deal of money.” He added that Howard Koch was hard at work on the film script and should complete a preliminary script or “treatment” by the end of February.47
In the meantime, Gosch was trying to drum up publicity for the film in the United States. His biggest coup came on the floor of the United States House of Representatives on February 24, 1965, when Congressman James C. Corman of California gave a short speech about Oskar Schindler and To the Last Hour. Corman, whose congressional district included Hollywood and Beverly Hills, began his brief comments by noting that the American film industry was often criticized because of its “almost unlimited freedom” to express itself. But occasionally, he added, a motion picture comes forward that “is very nearly above criticism.” This was true of MGM’s upcoming film, To the Last Hour. It was about Oskar Schindler, a man recently honored by the State of Israel for saving 1,300 Jews during the war. The theme of the film, “that man’s humanity to man must always prevail,” certainly was the case with Schindler, a German and a Catholic. The fact, Corman went on, that Schindler, in the “face of incredible dangers and adversities” was still willing to “become his brother’s keeper” was certainly a “sign of hope that one day a true peace [would] be built from friendship and understanding.” Congressman Corman concluded by saying that he knew of no recent film “that convey[ed] so great a message or that ha[d] the potential to weave all peoples into the common thread of individual brotherhood.”48
Corman’s remarks thrilled Gosch, who sent a copy by special delivery to Dan Terrell with MGM’s publicity office in New York. Gosch wrote Terrell that he had spent the past two months with the leading Hollywood artists’ representatives “using every persuasive means . . . to mind-condition . . . difficult and temperamental people to one inalienable fact: that for an important star to appear in their forthcoming film vehicle [would] be tantamount to a status symbol within the industry.” Gosch then went to the heart of the matter about the progress of the film: finding a top notch star to play the role of Oskar Schindler. He thought that Corman’s remarks were “the final seal of approval . . . to break down the one rule-of-thumb of [their] business—no star wants to commit to a picture without seeing the screenplay.” He and Delbert Mann felt that if proper use were made of these remarks in the Congressional Record they would “fire the strongest opening gun that a picture has ever had in the difficult area of top casting.” He assured Terrell that he would have a script treatment ready in a few weeks that would then be used to cast the leading actors. The final script would be ready in May. He hoped to begin production in December though it would take several months to build a set near MGM’s studio in Madrid. Gosch said that he had some top rate actors interested in the film. He added: “Agents for Burt Lancaster, Paul Newman and a number of other players of similar category are giving the Oskar Schindler role so much consideration that, literally, they are holding open any likelihood of conflict with a possible December starting date until they have had an opportunity to read and discuss the treatment of our picture.”49
In the meantime, Gosch sent Delbert Mann a list of the main characters for the film. Howard Koch would use the real names of Oskar and Emilie only; all other characters would be given new names. Leopold Page was now “Poldi” Resnick and Amon Göth would become Karl Gunter. Itzhak Stern was the character Solomon Kravitz and Herman Rosner became the model for Herman Spivak. Helen Hirsch Horowitz was now Rebecca Bar-tok and Rabbi Menashe Levertov was the character Rabbi Julius Levy. All the major and minor characters in the film were many of the same people interviewed by Gosch and Koch in late 1964. Steven Spielberg chose to feature many of the same people in his 1993 motion picture, though he used their real names. What is also different about this earlier film proposal is the expansion of the story to include Schindler’s Abwehr contacts and Righteous Gentiles such as Raimund Titsch.50
The Film Treatment for To The Last Hour
Koch finished a 130-page screenplay treatment, or preliminary script, on March 15. The “Producer’s Statement” at the beginning declared: “The amount of fictionalization content is minimal” though, in reality, there is a great deal of fiction in this early draft. Emilie, for example, plays a major role in the March 15 treatment. But as no one ever interviewed her for the film, much of what she did in this treatment was fictional. The same is true of Helen Hirsch, who figured prominently in the 1964 MGM treatment and Spielberg’s 1993 film. In Koch’s preliminary screenplay, for example, there is a preposterous scene in which Karl Gunter (Göth) forces Rebeka Bartok (Helen Hirsch) slowly to strip in front of Schindler. In another scene, Koch’s tale of Oskar’s first trip to Budapest to meet Jewish Agency representatives in 1943 is much more exciting than his real trip there using a German travel visa. Koch has Oskar flown to Hungary by Rudi Froelich, an Abwehr agent enamored with Emilie, where Oskar parachutes into the countryside and is met by armed men who lead him to Jewish Agency representatives in Budapest.51
Other than the shocking moment where Koch has Rebeka Bartok strip for Schindler, one of the most outrageous scenes is where Oskar plays poker with Gunter (Göth) to make up the list of Jews that he wants to take with him to Brünnlitz. There is no hint of the sacred “Schindler’s List” made up by Stern and Schindler in Spielberg’s film. Instead, every time Oskar wins a hand in Koch’s 1965 film treatment, and he seems to win handily that particularly day, he adds a new name to his list. This is how, supposedly, Schindler is able to put Poldi Resnick (Leopold Page) and Rebeka Bartok (Helen Hirsch) on his list. When the lengthy game ends, Gunter flies into a rage, calling Schindler a “Jew-lover.” Oskar in turn calls Gunter “an inhuman bastard.” As Gunter pulls out his pistol, Schindler warns him that he has a letter in his safe detailing Gunter’s corruption. His secretary had orders to send it to General Otto Wechsler (General Maximilian Schindler of the Armaments Inspectorate) if Oskar never returned from Gunter’s villa.52
Wechsler also plays a fictional role in granting Schindler Armaments Inspectorate permission to make the move to Brünnlitz. In real life, General Schindler (Wechsler) did everything he could to help his Sudeten German namesake save Jews. But in the Koch treatment, Wechsler tells Oskar after he grants him permission for the move that “he would be accountable for every one of them [Jewish inmates] and for their eventual liquidation.” But before the move can take place, there is one last hurdle: SS approval. To get this, Emilie, against Oskar’s wishes, volunteers to go to SS headquarters in Prague, where she beguiles the commanding general, Schemer-horn, with her beauty. To avoid Schemerhorn’s efforts to seduce her, Emilie gets him drunk, but not before he gives his permission for the move. Oskar’s wife did all this “without either surrendering herself to the obnoxious General or incurring his enmity.”53
The trip to Brünnlitz for the men is also fictionalized. They make the long trip mostly on foot, though Oskar did manage to “get together an assortment of vehicles ranging from lorries to bicycles and horse-drawn wagons” for some of them. The account of Oskar’s efforts to save the women in Auschwitz is a mixture of fiction and fact. After Oskar goes to Auschwitz and fails to convince the commandant to release his three hundred women, Oskar’s secretary, Ilse Schoen, volunteers to go to Auschwitz to try to free the Schindler females. Early one morning, Ilse suddenly appears at the front gate of Brünnlitz, leading the women. A surprised Oskar rushes out of his office to greet the group, but Ilse pleads: “Please don’t ask me anything.” She then falls weeping into Emilie’s arms. Though about a fifth of the script deals with Brünnlitz, there is no mention of the Golleschau transport and the remarkable efforts to save the Jews on it. For many Schindler survivors, this was the most memorable event in the Schindler story other than those surrounding liberation.54
Koch became really creative when it came to the days leading up to the liberation of the camp. Oskar, presumably away trying to find a way to prevent the murder of his Jews, leaves Emilie, who has emerged as the script’s principal heroine, in charge. As Jewish workers dig a death pit with a large bulldozer, a member of the Czech underground infiltrates the camp dressed as an SS officer and convinces Emilie to come with him in a truck to get hidden arms. When Oskar returns, he organizes a Jewish commando unit under Poldi Reznick (Leopold Page). As the armed Jewish group begins to take over the camp, Oskar confronts the commandant, Bischel (Josef Leipold) and tells him that he is taking over Brünnlitz. A fight ensues and Bischel tries to shoot Oskar with his Luger. As the struggle continues, Oskar knocks the Luger out of Bischel’s hand. A few moments later, Oskar hits Bischel with “a hard blow on the side of his head. Bischel falls back, trips, and plunges through the open window, landing on the cement pavement below.”55
