20 Friday, November 12, 1982 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Tragic Story of Righteous Gentile in Schindler's List' On the Avenue of the Righteous, approaching Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, the historical center con- taining the record of the millions murdered by the Nazis and memorializing them, there is a tree with a dedicatory plate in the name of Oskar Schindler. It perpetuates the name of a man whose labors of saving Jews now emerge as one of the most moving stories of the war. Thomas Keneally is re- sponsible for bringing to light the most dramatic story of the war contained in the Schindler name, and what has been written as a novel under the title "Schindler's List" (Simon and Schuster) is already credited as one of the most dramatic stories of World War II. When Keneally appears here Tuesday as a Jewish Book Fair speaker, at a ses- sion sponsored by Hadas- sah, he will share great honors for having brought to light and for having made it an inerasable chapter in history by introducing to the world a leading char- acter in the rescue efforts of the last war: Oskar Schin- dler. He was a counterpart to Raoul Wallenberg and the most eminent in the ranks of the Righteous Gentiles. Oskar Schin- dler protected 1,200 Jews; he treated them like his children and saved the lives of 1,200 who survived the death camps because their savior conducted a "con- centration camp" of his own making. His per- sonal imagination and defiance of the Nazi ter- ror was unmatched in the history of the world's most inhuman terror. They worked for him in his enamelware factory, and the saga commenced in Cracow, Poland. When the situation grew worse in the Nazi search for Jewish can- didates for the Auschwitz crematoria, he moved them and his plant to his native Moravia. It was because in addition to enamelware his factory THOMAS KENEALLY manufactured anti-tank, weapons and the Nazis needed the munitions. He, in turn, made the rescue of Jews his life's endeavor. On occasion he went to Auschwitz and virtually pulled Jews out of the ovens to retain them as his work- ers, to save their lives. They retained the titles of Schindlerjuden. They were also called Schin- dler Brothers. They survived to tell the tale and to retain a love for the great man who was a drunkard, a woman chaser who was married to a lady who always retained her fidelity for him. Why he de- voted his life to saving Jews has never been explained. It remains one of the mys- teries and miracles of the terrible war. The miracle also is that an already prominent author, whose novels have become best sellers, who has won many awards, should have managed to come across a tale that merited being fictionalized and yet became one of the great stories of World War IL A native of Sidney, Au- stralia, the Irish Catholic Keneally links his name with the Righteous Gentiles in the great work that was acclaimed as "Schindler's Ark" in England and is now the great sensation in this country under the title "Schindler's List." How can it be ex- plained that the story of the German Catholic industrialist Oskar Schindler was kept a kind of a secret until the publication of "Schin- dler's List" by Thomas Keneally? In an epilogue to his book, describing the last years of Schin- dler, the trials of the Nazis, the recognition For those who want the finest custom furniture at... AFFORDABLE PRICES )1( The simplest cube to the most intricate wall unit built to your specifications by meticulous craftsmen. Selections for every room in your home or office in fine woods, laminates, marble, glass and specializing in... OUTSTANDING LUCITE DESIGNS E,14tede 01,40,0,0, 354-4126 F that was given the now ever, to avoid all fiction, identified hero, the Joint since fiction would debase Distribution Committee the record, and to distin- -knew about his exploits guish between reality and and honored him, assist- the myths which are likely ing him in his days of to attach themselves to a penury with a stipend. man of Oskar's stature. It Yad Vashem knew about has sometimes been neces- him; his wife Emilie, tes- sary to make reasonable tifying to his genius as a constructs of converstions of which Oskar and others savior of so many lives. have left only the briefest For an understanding of how Keneally learned about record. "But most exchanges and the hero, traveled to many lands to meet the survivors, conversations, and all the details ascribed to a events, are based on the de- novel that is so completely tailed recollections of the truth, it is necessary to read Schindlerjuden (Schindler the author's note to his book Jews), of Schindler himself, in almost its entirety, thus: and of other witnesses to "In 1980 I visited a lug- Oskar's acts of outrageous gage store in Beverly Hills, rescue." Deleted is the long list California, and inquired the prices of briefcases. The store belonged to Leopold Pfefferberg, a Schindler survivor. It was beneath Pfefferberg's shelves of im- ported Italian leathergoods that I first heard of Oskar Schindler, the German bon vivant, speculator, charmer, and sign of con- tradiction, and of his sal- vage of a cross section of a condemned race during those years now known by the generic name Holocaust. "This account of Oskar's astonishing history is based OSKAR SCHINDLER in the first place on inter- views with 50 Schindler of names with the Kene- survivors from seven na- ally expression of tions — Australia, Israel, gratitude for their help, West Germany, Austria, including Emilie Schin- the United States, Argen- dler, Yad Vashem staff tina and Brazil. It is people and others. Oskar Schindler and his enriched by a visit, in the company of Leopold Pfeffer- wife Emilie settled in berg, to locations that prom- Argentina. He became a inently figure in the book: farmer. The effort ended in Cracow, Oskar's adopted bankruptcy in 1957. Bnai city; Plaszow, the scene of Brith helped them settle in Amon Goeth's foul labor San Vicente. He was a sales camp; Lipowa Street, Zab- representative for a year. Then, leaving Emilie be- locie, where Oskar's factory still stands; Auschwifz- hind, he left for Germay. He Birkenau, from which sought aid from the German Oskar extracted his women government, seeking to es- tablish a cement factory in prisoners. "But the narration de- Frankfurt. He failed to get pends also on documen- such aid. Schindlerjuden tary and other informa- provided some help. The ef- tion supplied by those fort failed again in 1961. Schindler then went to Is- few wartime associates of Oskar's who can 'still be rael at the invitation of the reached, as well as by the Schindler Jews and was large body of his welcomed enthusiastically. Schindler was greatly postwar friends. Many of the plentiful tes- honored while in Israel. timonies regarding He was there during the Oskar deposited by Eichmann trial and his Schindler Jews at Yad story attracted wide at- Vashem, The Martyrs' tention. A plaque in his honor was and Heroes' Remembr- ance. Authority, further unveiled in the Park of enriched the record, as Heroes in Tel Aviv and the- did written testimonies inscription describes him as from private sources and "the savior of 1,200 pris- a body of Schindler pap- oners of Brinnlitz," and it ers and letters, some adds that it was "erected in supplied by Yad Vashem, love and gratitude." He was some by Oskar's friends. declared "A Righteous Per- "To use the texture and son" a few days later in devices of a novel to tell a Jerusalem. Back in Frankfurt, he true story is a course that was hissed and a mob de- has frequently been fol- lowed in modern writing. It clared he should have been with the Jews. is the one I chose to follow burned Keneally reports in his here — both because the epilogue that "in 1963 he novelist's craft is the only punched a factory worker one I can lay claim to, and who had called him a 'Jew because the novel's tech- kisser,' and the man lodged niques seem suited for a a charge of assault." Oskar character of such ambiguity was lectured by the court and magnitude as Oskar. and ordered to pay dam- "I have attempted, how- ages. He became dependent on his Juden, in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. He limited him- self to three cognacs a night. In 1966, efforts were renewed to secure com- pensation from the Ger- man government on the grounds of his heroism, loss of property and fragile health. Keneally explains, "It was not until July 1, 1 968 that the Ministry of Finance was happy to report that from that date it would pay him a pension of 200 marks per month." The first official reaction from the German govern- ment was the award of the Cross of Merit in 1966, in a ceremony at which Konrad Adenauer presided. He received the Papal Knighthood of St. Sylvester from the Bishop of Linburg. Schindler continued to assist in the prosecution of war criminals. Back in Germany, he helped conduct fundrais- ing for the Hebrew Uni- versity in Jerusalem. He helped set up exchanges between German and Is- raeli children. But de- spite his poor health he continued drinking. He conducted a love affair with a German woman he met at the Kind David in Jerusalem, his wife having remained in Argentina. Keneally adds to the story of the Schindlers: "His wife, Emilie, still lived, without any financial help from him, in her little house in San Vincente, south of Buenos Aires. She lives there at the time of the writing of this book. As she was in Brinnlitz, she is a figure of quiet dignity. "In a documentary made by German television in 1973, she spoke — without any of the abandoned wife's bitterness or sense of griev- ance — about Oskar and Brinnlitz, about her own behavior in Brinnlitz. Per- ceptively, she remarked that Oskar had done noth- ing astounding before the war and had been unexcep- tional since. He was fortu- nate, therefore, that in that short fierce era between 1939 and 1945 he had met people who summoned forth his deeper talents. "In 1972, during a visit by Oskar to the New York executive office of the American Friends of He- brew University, three Schindlerjuden, partners in a large New Jersey construction company, led a group of 75 other Schindler prisoners in raising $102,000 to dedi- cate to Oskar a floor of the Truman Research Center at Hebrew Uni- versity. The floor would house a Book of Life, con- taining an account of Os- kar's rescues and a list of the rescued. "Two of these partners, Murray Pantirer and Isak Levenstein, had been 16 years old when Oskar brought them to Brinnlitz. Now Oskar's children had become his parents, his best . recourse, his source of honor. "He was very ill. The men who had been physicians in Brinnlitz — Alexander Biberstein, for example knew it. One of them warned Oskar's close friends, 'the man should not be alive. His heart is work- ing through pure stubborn- ness.' "In October 1974, he col- , lapsed at his small apart- ment near the railway sta- tion in Frankfurt and died in a hospital on Oct. 9. His death certificate says that advanced hardening of the arteries of the brain and heart had caused the final seizure. "His will declared a wish he had already ex- pressed to a number of Schindlerjuden — that he be buried in Jerusalem. Within two weeks the Franciscan parish priest of Jerusalem had given his permission for Herr Oskar Schindler, one of the Church's least obser- vant sons, to be buried in ' the Latin Cemetery of Jerusalem." An obituary of Schindler was published on Page 54 of The Detroit Jewish News, Oct. 18, 1974. It appeared under a two-column head "Oscar Schindler, Duped Nazis, Saved Jews From Death Camp." It was about 10 inches in length. Now his story merits this lengthy review. Thomas Keneally earns all the honors accorded him for unearthing this over- whelming tale of heroism. —P.S. * * * Yad Vashem Cites Woman JERUSALEM — Yad Vashem l.st week honored a Polish woman now living in the U.S. for saving the lives of 300 Jewish co- workers during World War II. Irena Gut-Updike, who was foreman of a laundry in Tarnopol, warned her Jewish workers of a Nazi roundup, led them to a hid- ing place in the woods and supplied them with food and clothing for nine months until the area was liberated. Corrections The Nails by Sharon ad- vertisement appearing in last week's Jewish News was in error. The ad should have read that only manicures are being of- fered to new clients at 20 percent off every Tuesday in November. The Jewish News regrets the error. * * * The obituary for Ab- raham Franzblau in last week's Jewish News was in error. Dr. Franzblau was not a former De- troiter, nor was he the president of the Halevy Singing Society. It was former Detroiter Eugene Franzblau who was affil- iated with the singing society. The Jewish News regrets the error.