Oskar Schindler, page 90
39. O’Neil, “An Analysis of the Actions of Oskar Schindler,” 68 n. 3; “Schindler Survivor Remained Aloof from Postwar Hype (Obituary), The Australian, May 26, 2000, 15.
40. Ralf Eibl and Norbert Jessen, “Im Schatten Schindlers,” Die Welt (February 22, 2000):10.
41. Ibid.
42. “The Confessions of Mr. X,” Budapest, November 1943, Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), Nachlaß Oskar Schindler, 1908–1974, Bestand N 1493, No. 1, Band 18, 4 (hereafter referred to as “The Confessions of Mr. X,” BA(K)).
43. “Oskar Schindler to Salpeter, Isac Stern, Rabiner Levetov, Dr. N. Stern, Edel Elsner Henek Licht, and Others,” April 1955, Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), Nachlaß Oskar Schindler, 1908–1974, Bestand, N 1493, No. 1, Band 23, 4 (hereafter referred to as “Oskar Schindler to Salpeter et al.,” BA(K)).
44. “Oskar Schindler to Itzhak Stern,” October 22, 1956, Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), Nachlaß Oskar Schindler, 1908–1974, Bestand 1493, No. 1, Band 23, 1.
45. Małopolska, or Little Poland, is a reference to a specific region in Poland that has Kraków as its capital.
46. “Wypis Pierwszy. Akt Notarialny, Numer Repertorium 228/37, March 17, 1937 (Krakow), Akta Rejestru Handlowego przy SHdzie Okręgowym w Krakowie, Oddział II (akta dotyczęce firmy: Pierwsza Małopolska Fabryka Naczyv Emaliowanychg i Wyrobów Balszanych “Rekord”, Spółka z o. o w Krakowie), RH 401-RHB XII 35, 1–2, 6 (hereafter referred to as SOK, RH 401-RHB XII 35); “Oswiadczenie,” March 17, 1937, SOK, RH 401-RHB XII 35, “Rekord,” 1; there were 5.28 złotys to the U.S. dollar in 1937, Bidwell, Currency Conversion, 37.
47. “Wypis Pierwszy. Akt Noytarialny,” Numer Repertorium 977/37, October 27, 1937, SOK RH 401-RHB XII 35, 1, 3–4, 6–7; “Numer Repertorium 613, September 12, 1938, SOK RH 401-RHB XII 35, 1–2, 8; the exchange rate for the złoty to the U.S. dollar was 5.28 in 1937 and 5.30 in 1938. Bidwell, Currency Conversion, 37.
48. Mendelsohn, The Jews of East Central Europe, 69–70; Joseph Rothschild, East Central Europe Between the Two World Wars (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1974), 40–41, 68–69; Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland, vol. 2, 1795 to the Present (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 415–418.
49. The official date of the bankruptcy declaration was June 23, 1939; “Stanislaw Früh-ling to Sad Okręgówy w Krakowie,” September 1, 1939, SOKC 2022: III U 5/39, 244–245; “Michał Gutman and Wolf Luzer Galjtman to Dr. Zbigniew Reczyvski,” July 10, 1939, SOKC 2022: III U 5/39, 235–236.
50. “Wypis Pierwszy. Akt Norarialny,” Numer Repertorium: 371/39, March 17, 1939, SOK, RH 401-RHB XII 35, “Rekord,” 5.
51. “Gutman and Glajtman to Reczyvski,” July 10, 1939, SOKC 2022: III U 5/39, 235–236; “Natan Wurzel to Dr. Zbigniew Reczyvski,” July 30, 1939, SOKC 2022: III U 5/39, 1 page; “Natan Wurzel to Dr. Zbigniew Reczyvski,” August 8, 1939, SOKC 2022: III U 5/39, 1 page; “Natan Wurzel to Wolf Gleitman i Michał Gutman,” August 9, 1939, SOKC 2022: III U 5/39, 1 page.
52. Frühling to Sad Okręgówy w Krakowie, September 1, 1939, SOKC 2022: III U 5/39, 244–245.
53. “Dr. Bolesław Zawisza to Sad Okręgowy w Krakowy,” August 4, 1942, SOKC 2023: III U 5/39, 1–2 plus “Odpis,” July 24, 1942 and “Odpis” August 3, 1942. These latter documents are summaries of the meeting with Natan Wurzel and his last two letters to Dr. Zawisza.
54. Brzesko’s Jewish cemetery was opened in 1846; the last of its three cemeteries was completed in 1904. The synagogue on ul. Puszkina was turned into a public library after the war. Martin Gilbert, Holocaust Journey: Traveling in Search of the Past (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 196; Joram Kagan, Poland’s Jewish Heritage (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1992), 56–57.
55. “Dr. Roland Goryczko to Sad Okręgowy w Krakowie,” January 15, 1940, SOKC 2022: III U 5/39, 1–4; “Treuhänder für Werke und Gewerbe to Oskar Schindler,” November 13, 1939, SOKC 2022: III U/59, 1–2; “Protokol,” November 14, 1939, SOKC 2022: III U/59, 1–2.
56. Goryczko to SOK, January 15, 1940, SOKC 2022: III U 5/39, 1–4; Sad Grodzki w Krakowie, November 13, 1940, SOKC 2022: III U 5/39, 1 page.
57. “Dr. Roland Goryczko to SHd Okręgowy w Krakowie,” November 23, 1939, SOKC 2022: III U 5/39, 1–4.
58. Palowski, Making of Schindler’s List, 111.
59. “Natan Wurzel to Julius Wiener” (in Hebrew), May 21, 1955, Yad Vashem Archives, M31/30, 1.
60. “Antoni Korzeniowski to American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Tel Aviv,” October 10, 1951, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives, Jerusalem (File: Oskar Schindler), 1 page (hereafter referred to as AJJDC Archives, Jerusalem (O. Schindler); “Helen Fink to Antoni Korzeniowski,” November 8, 1951, AJJDC Archives, Jerusalem (O. Schindler), 1 page.
61. “Wurzel to Wiener,” May 21, 1955, YVA, M31/30, 2.
62. “Oskar Schindler to Salpeter et al.,” BA(K), Oskar Schindler, N 1493, 1/23, 6–7; Oskar Schindler Bericht, October 30, 1955, Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), Nachlaß Oskar Schindler, 1908–1974, Bestand, N 1493, No. 1, Band 15, 15 (hereafter referred to as Oskar Schindler Bericht, BA(K); “Wurzel to Wiener,” May 21, 1955, YVA, M31/30, 1.
63. “Oskar Schindler to Salpeter et al.”, April 1955, BA, Oskar Schindler, N 1493, 1/23, 1–2.
64. Ibid.
65. Oskar Schindler Bericht, BA(K), 1; “Oskar Schindler to Salpeter et al.,” BA(K), 2.
66. “Oskar Schindler to Salpeter et al.,” BA(K), 2
67. Ibid., 3; Gross, Polish Society, 80, 107.
68. “Oskar Schindler to Salpeter et al.,” BA(K), 3.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid.
71. “Oskar Schindler to Salpeter et al.,” BA(K), 4; “Testimony of Julius Wiener before Messrs. Shatkai and Landau, in the Presence of Mr. Alkalai (in Hebrew) Jerusalem, 6 August 1963, Yad Vashem Archives, M 31/30 (RGD), 1 (hereafter referred to as “Testimony of Julius Wiener,” August 6, 1963, YVA, M31/30); “Testimony of Esther Schwartz in the Matter of Oskar Schindler” (in Hebrew), 1963, Yad Vashem Archives, M 31/30 (RGD), 2–3 (hereafter referred to as “Testimony of Esther Schwartz, 1963,” YVA, M 31/30).
72. “Testimony of Julius Wiener” (in Polish), October 10, 1956, Yad Vashem Archives, 01/164, 4 (hereafter referred to as “Testimony of Julius Wiener,” 10 October 1956, YVA, 01/164).
73. Ibid., 4–5.
74. Ibid., 5. Lapuvka is from the Polish word łapówka (bribe). According to Yudit Natkin, my Hebrew translator, and her network of Yiddish specialists, there is also a word in Yiddish, Lapuvka, that means a small shovel or shoulder blade. In this context, Lapuvka could mean a pat on the back, or, more literally, a bribe. Schindler often used Yiddish and Hebrew words in letters to his Jewish friends.
75. “Oskar Schindler to Salpeter et al.,” BA(K), 5.
76. Ibid.; Bauer, American Jewry, 320.
77. Tadeusz Pankiewicz, Apteka w Getcie Krakowskim (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Liter-ackie, 1995), 65–66; Malvina Graf, The Kraków Ghetto and the Płaszów Camp Remembered (Tallahassee: University of Florida Press, 1989), 40.
78. Pankiewicz, Apteka w Getcie Krakowskim, 66–67; Graf, The Kraków Ghetto, 40–41.
79. Graf, The Kraków Ghetto, 41.
80. Pankiewicz, Apteka w Getcie Krakowskim, 67–68.
81. Ibid., 68–69.
82. “Oskar Schindler to Salpeter et al.,” BA(K), 5–6; Palowski, Making of Schindler’s List, 37–38.
83. Ibid., 5; Palowski, Making of Schindler’s List, 35–36.
84. Palowski, Making of Schindler’s List, 37–38.
85. Ibid., 39–42.
86. “Oskar Schindler to Salpeter et al.,” BA(K), 6.
87. Ibid., 7.
88. “Testimony of Julius Wiener,” October 10, 1956, YVA. 01/164, 1. “Testimony of Julius Wiener” (in Hebrew), August 6, 1963, Yad Vashem Archives, M 31/30, 1 (hereafter referred to as “Testimony of Julius Wiener,” August 6, 1963, YVA, M 31/30, 1); “Testimony of Esther Schwartz,” 1963, YVA, M 31/30, 1.
89. “Testimony of Esther Schwartz,” 1963, YVA, M 31/30, 1; “Testimony of Julius Wiener, August 6, 1963, YVA, MVA 31/30, 1.
90. “Testimony of Julius Wiener,” October 10, 1956, YVA, 01/164, 1–2.
91. Ibid.; “Testimony of Natan Wurzel” (in Hebrew), November 26, 1956, Yad Vashem Archives, M 31/30 (RGD), 1.
92. “Testimony of Esther Schwartz,” 1963, YVA, M 31/30, 1; “Testimony of Julius Wiener,” October 10, 1956, YVA, 01/164, 1–2; “Testimony of Julius Wiener,” August 3, 1963, YVA, M 31/30, 1.
93. “Testimony of Julius Wiener,” October 10, 1956, YVA, 01/164, 2; “Testimony of Julius Wiener,” August 6, 1963, YVA, M 31/30, 1; “Testimony of Esther Schwartz, 1963, YVA, M 31/30, 1; “Testimony of Natan Wurzel,” November 26, 1956, YVA, M 31/30, 1.
94. “Testimony of Esther Schwartz,” 1963, YVA, M 31/30, 2; “Testimony of Julius Wiener,” August 3, 1963, YVA, M 31/32, 1.
95. “Testimony of Julius Wiener,” October 10, 1956, YVA, 01/164, 3; “Testimony of Natan Wurzel,” November 26, 1956, YVA, M31/30, 1.
96. “Testimony of Esther Schwartz,” 1963, YVA, M 31/30, 2.
97. “Testimony of Julius Wiener,” August 6, 1963, YVA, M 31/30, 1–2.
98. “Moshe Landau and A. L. Kubovy to Oskar Schindler,” December 24, 1963, Yad Vashem Archives, M-31/20-1, 1 page; “Testimony of Mrs. Simah Hartmann (Gelcer) before Shatkai and Landau, in the Presence of Alkalai and Wiener” (in Hebrew), August 28, 1963, Yad Vashem Archives, M 31/30 (RGD), 1.
99. “The Enterprising Committee of the Work Camp Survivors: Oskar Schindler in Brinnlitz, to Mr. Aryeh Leon Kovivi” (in Hebrew), December 10, 1961, Yad Vashem Archives, Oskar and Emilie Schindler Collection, Department of the Righteous, 2–4 (hereafter referred to as “The Enterprising Committee of the Work Camp Survivors,” December 10, 1961, YVA, Schindler Collection).
100. “Schindler to Salpeter et al.,” BA(K), 7–8; “The Enterprising Committee of the Work Camp Survivors,” December 10, 1961, YVA, Schindler Collection, 1–4.
101. “Simon Jeret to Oskar Schindler” (in German), December 17, 1956, Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), Nachlaß Oskar Schindler, 1908–1974, Bestand 1493, No. 1, Band 23, 1.
102. Urbach, interviews by the author, April 13, 1999, and February 15, 2000.
103. Ibid.
104. Ibid.
105. Ibid.
106. Ibid.
107. “Schindler Financial Report 1945,” Yad Vashem Archives, 01/164, 1.
108. Urbach, interview, March 19, 2000; Urbach, interviews, April 13, 1999, February 15, 2000, and March 19, 2000.
109. “Testimony of Julius Wiener,” August 6, 1963, YVA, 2.
110. “Oskar Schindler to Dr. K. J. Ball-Kaduri” (in German), September 9, 1956, Bun-desarchiv (Koblenz), Nachlaß Oskar Schindler, 1908–1974, Bestand 1493, No. 1, Band 25, 2; “Oskar Schindler to Simon Jeret” (in German), November 25, 1956, Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), Nachlaß Oskar Schindler, 1908–1974, Bestand 1493, No. 1, Band 25, 3.
111. “Notes of Dr. Moshe Bejski on the Banquet in Honor of Oskar Schindler,” May 2, 1962, Tel Aviv, Israel (in Hebrew), 29. Dr. Bejski kindly gave me a copy of his typed transcript of the evening’s testimonials and speeches when I interviewed him in Tel Aviv on May 17, 1999.
Chapter 4
1. Krakauer Zeitung, May 30, 1943, 15.
2. Karl Baedeker, Das Generalgouvernement: Reisehandbuch von Karl Baedeker (Leipzig: Karl Baedeker, 1943), iv.
3. Ibid., 10, 102, 137.
4. Ibid., 32–34, 142.
5. Dr. Max Freiherr du Prel, ed., Das General Gouvernement (Würzburg: Konrad Triltsch Verlag, 1942), v, viii-xii, 375–391.
6. Ibid., 147.
7. “Die Juden schwingen sich in den Sattel,” Krakauer Zeitung, September 18, 1943, 3; “Jüdisches Parasitentum ohne Maske,” Krakauer Zeitung, September 28, 1943, 5; Hanns Stock, “Fünf Jahre befreites Sudetenland,” Krakauer Zeitung, September 28, 1943, 3.
8. Hans Frank, Dziennik Hansa Franka, vol. 1 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Prawnicze, 1956), 35, 71.
9. Ulrich Herbert, Hitler’s Foreign Workers: Enforced Foreign Labor in Germany under the Third Reich, trans. William Templer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 62, 70, 198, 462.
10. Herbert, Hitler’s Foreign Workers, 79–84; Jan Tomasz Gross, Polish Society under German Occupation: The Generalgouvernement, 1939–1944 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979), 79–80.
11. Oskar Schindler Bericht, October 30, 1955, Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), Nachlaß Oskar Schindler, 1908–1974, Bestand N 1493, No. 1, Band 15, 1; Oskar Schindler Lebenslauf, October 26, 1966, Bundesarchiv (Koblenz), Nachlaß Oskar Schindler, 1908–1974, Bestand N 1493, No. 1, Band 1, 1–2; the General Government took over the Polish State Monopolies for Tobacco, Spirits, Salt, Matches, and the Lottery on November 1, 1939. Du Prel, Das General-Gouvernement, 104–105, 377.
12. Oskar Schindler Bericht, BA(K), 1.
13. Sol Urbach, interview by the author, Delray Beach, Florida, February 15, 2000.
14. “Testimony of Edith Wertheim,” June 20, 1994, T-2956, Fortunoff Archives, Yale University.
15. “Schindler Financial Report 1945,” Yad Vashem Archives, 01/164, 1 (hereafter referred to as Schindler Financial Report 1945, YVA).
16. “Testimony of Edith Wertheim,” November 13, 1964, Martin A. Gosch and Howard Koch, “The Oskar Schindler Story,” Delbert Mann Papers, Special Collections Library, Vanderbilt University, 1B, 9–10.
17. “Testimony of Menachim Stern,” July 15, 1979, T-152, Fortunoff Archives, Yale University.
18. Gross, Polish Society under German Occupation, 109–110; Czesław Madajczyk, Polityka III Rzeszy w Okupowanej Polsce, vol. 2 (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1970), 67–68.
19. Gross, Polish Society, 110.
20. Ibid., 110–111.
21. Isaiah Trunk, Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation (New York: Stein & Day, 1977), 64–65; Gross, Polish Society, 94, 100–101; Mada-jczyk, Polityka III Rzeszy w Okupowanej Polsce, II, 66–67.
22. Eugeniusz Duda, The Jews of Cracow, trans. Ewa Basiura (Kraków: Wydawnictwo ‘Hagada’ and Argona-Jarden Bookshop, 2000), 60–62; Czesław Madajczyk, Polityka III Rzesy w Okupowanej Polsce, vol. 1 (Warszawa: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1970), 516–519; Gross, Polish Society, 93–96; Trunk, Judenrat, 63–64; Piotrowski, Dzien-nik Hansa Frank, I, 265–266; the Polish edition of Hans Frank’s diary is more complete than the English version, Stanisław Piotrowski’s Hans Frank’s Diary (Warszawa: Pavst-wowe Wydanictwo Naukowe, 1961), 217–218.
23. Jeremy Noakes and Geoffrey Pridham, eds., Nazism: A History in Documents and Eyewitness Accounts, 1919–1945, vol. 2, Foreign Policy, War and Racial Extermination (New York: Schocken Books, 1988), 1051.
24. Noakes and Pridham, Nazism, 1052–1053; Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, vol. 1 (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985), 191.
25. Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, “The Middle Ages,” in Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson, ed. A History of the Jewish People (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), 639; Shmuel Ettinger, “The Modern Period,” in Ben-Sasson, A History of the Jewish People (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), 762, 807, 811–812.
26. Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, 1:205–206; efforts were also made in the immediate months after the outbreak of the war to set up ghettos in Piotrków just southwest of )odz and in Warsaw. Plans for the Warsaw ghetto collapsed after Judenrat leaders appealed to Warsaw’s military commandant, General Karl von Neumann-Neurode.
27. Duda, The Jews of Cracow, 62.
28. Piotrowski, Dziennik Hansa Frank, 266; Aleksander Bieberstein, Zagłada ¢ydów w Krakowie (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1985), 32; Duda, Jews of Cracow, 62. The Gazeta ¢adowska, which was edited by a German Jew, Fritz Seifert, was published from July 23, 1940 until August 30, 1942.
29. Duda, Jews of Cracow, 62.
30. Ibid.
31. Arieh L. Bauminger, The Fighters of the Cracow Ghetto (Jerusalem: Keter Press Enterprises, 1986), 30–31.
32. Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, 2:668–669, 3:1108; Shmuel Krakowski, “The Fate of Jewish Prisoners of War in the September 1939 Campaign, Yad Vashem Studies, vol. 12 (1977), 316–317. Wächter’s dutiful enforcement of these regulations served him well. He became Governor of Galicia when it was integrated into the General Government after the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Two years later, Wächter, now an SS-Gruppenführer, became the Chief of Military Administration of German occupied Italy after the collapse of Mussolini’s first regime. Wächter remained in Italy after the war ended and died in Rome in 1949 under the protection of Bishop Alois Hudal, the rector of Santa Maria del Anima and confessor to the German Catholic community in Rome. A year earlier, the controversial Bishop had helped Franz Stangl, the commandant of the Treblinka death camp, escape to Syria. Duda, Jews of Cracow, 62–63; Frank, Dziennik Hansa Franka, 52. Frank cites November 10 as Independence Day in the Polish edition. The editors of the English edition corrected the date. Piotrowski, Hans Frank’s Diary, 49; Trial of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under Control Council Law No. 10 (Nuernberg October 1946-April 1949), vol. 12 (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1951), 107; Gitta Sereny, Into That Darkness: An Examination of Conscience (New York: Vintage Books, 1983), 275, 289–290.
33. Duda, Jews of Cracow, 63.
34. Tadeusz Pankiewicz, Apteka w Getcie Krakowskim (Kraków: Wydawnictwo Liter-ackie, 1995), 12–13; Malvina Graf, The Kraków Ghetto and the Płaszów Camp (Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1989), 35–36.
35. Duda, Jews of Cracow, 63; Emilie Schindler, Where Light and Shadow Meet, trans. Dolores M. Koch (New York: W. W. Norton & Company 1997), 50–51; Robin O’Neil, “An Analysis of the Actions of Oskar Schindler Within the Context of the Holocaust in German Occupied Poland and Czechoslovakia” (Master’s Thesis, University College, London, September 30 1996), 34. According to Emilie and O’Neil, Thomas Keneally called Amelia “Ingrid” in his novel. See Thomas Keneally, Schindler’s List (New York: Touchstone Books, 1992), 25, 78, 127–128.
36. Pankiewicz, Apteka w Getcie Krakowskim, 13–14.
