By MARCOS DE QUEIROZ GRILLO*

Commentary on Thomas Keneally's book

1.

Novelist, playwright and producer Thomas Keneally spent two years interviewing 50 survivors – Schindlerjuden (Schindler Jews) – in eight countries: Australia, Israel, the United States of America, Poland, West Germany, Austria, Argentina and Brazil. Based on these testimonies and on the testimonies found in the Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Section of the Yad Vashem Museum in Jerusalem, he created this fabulous recreation of history, narrated with the emphasis typical of fiction. He was awarded the Booker Prize in England.

Among those interviewed, the author mentioned Leopold Pfefferberg himself, Judge Mosh Bejski of the Supreme Court of Israel, and Mieczyslaw Pemper – who, in addition to sharing their memories of the period, provided documents that contributed to the accuracy of the narrative. The list also includes Emilie Schindler, Ludmila Pfefferberg, Sophia Stern, Helen Horowitz, Jonas Dresner, the Henry Rosner couple, Leopold Rosner, Alex Rosner, Idek Schindel, Danuta Schindel, Regina Horowitz, Bronislawa Karakulska, Richard Horowitz, Shmuel Springmann, the late Jakob Sternberg, among many others.

The book tells the story of the lives of thousands of Jews who were cut short, losing their identities and becoming nothing more than starving carcasses marked with a numbered tattoo on their forearms. They were just numbers, insignificant lives in the eyes of the Nazis and, as Himler always said, they had to be annihilated for “the good of Nazi Germany.” Itzhak Stern, Mrs. Pfeffeberg, Hanukkah, Danka, Genia, Menasha Levartov, among many others, lived through years of fear, pain at losing their relatives, hunger, cold, humiliation and deprivation at the hands of the Nazis. If they escaped, it was because they were lucky enough to meet people like Oscar, who risked their lives for them.

The book was adapted for the cinema by Universal Pictures, which produced the film entitled Schindler's List, directed by Stephen Spielberg, which won several Oscars and awards (best film, best director, best music and soundtrack, best photography, best editing, among others) and was considered one of the greatest cinematographic successes by the New York and Los Angeles Critics Association.

2.

This is a literary text that documents a real story experienced during World War II, portraying the drama of that time of holocaust, built on testimonies from Schindlerjuden (Schindler Jews) and avoids remaining only in the sphere of a biographical documentary about Oscar Schindler.

Holocaust is a masculine noun that means sacrifice, practiced by the ancient Hebrews, in which the victim was burned entirely. Its synonyms are immolation, sacrifice, massacre.

During the Nazi occupation of almost all of Europe, the term “holocaust” came to mean the genocide organized by Nazi Germans, mainly Jews, during the Second World War. Jews and any other minority considered inferior by the Nazis were systematically grouped together, exploited to exhaustion, and then summarily executed. The Holocaust was part of the “Final Solution,” a Nazi plan that sought to eliminate Jews from Europe, as well as other minorities such as gypsies, homosexuals, and blacks.

The book presents two entirely disparate realities. On the one hand, Polish Jews being violated in their lives by the Nazis (transferred to ghettos and then to a concentration camp, without any solidarity from their Polish compatriots). On the other hand, the Nazis lived and enjoyed their lives in complete safety and comfort.

Oscar Schindler, a German businessman and lobbyist affiliated with the Nazi Party, gets some wealthy Jews to hand over money they had been hiding. They would become “investor” employees in a cookware factory. In exchange, they would receive, in the long term, products that they could exchange on the black market, in addition to reducing the risk of being sent to the Gas Chamber. It was that or nothing.

Although he did not agree with the party's ideology of 'cleansing' Germany of the 'damned Jews', he made a profit from his enamel factory and contributed to the Party.

Oscar Schindler, in addition to being a businessman, was a member of the Nazi Party and very well connected in military circles. Having managed to capitalize on Jewish money, he lobbied powerful Nazis, won contracts to manufacture army tools and was authorized to use Jewish slave labor. All of this happened on the basis of an exchange of favors and a quid pro quo. Schindler paid commissions to German officers for the factory work of each Jew he employed, which he found cheaper than hiring Poles. Schindler was an expert at buying favors from SS and German army officers, both senior and junior.

At first, Schindler used Jewish slave labor from the ghettos. Later, when the ghettos were dismantled and the Jews were transferred to the Krakow Concentration Camp, he was able to continue using the same labor force. He took advantage of the fear of the Jews, who felt more protected with him, and delegated the entire operation of the factory to the Jewish accountant Stern, with whom he sought rapprochement.

Schindler always defended his employees during inspections by German soldiers, when there was a risk of them being arrested or killed, pretending not to care about their fate, but that it would be a great loss for his factory and for the country to waste 'specialized labor' already trained in that industry.

Despite the slave labor, Jews preferred to work in Schindler's factory because it reduced the risk of harder forced labor or, worse, being sent to the Gas Chamber.

As a result of Schindler's childhood relationship with Amon Göet, an SS officer and head of the concentration camp in Krakow, his employees are less likely than other Jews to be murdered at random and in cold blood, the favorite sport of that bipolar killer. Still, it sometimes happens.

By producing low-cost pans to meet the contracts he won with the army, Schindler accumulated a significant amount of wealth, which allowed him to lead a luxurious life full of orgies. He lived far from his wife and had several lovers, and was considered an irresistible person due to his elegance, education and charm.

However, its industrial production would not have been possible without the help of accountant Stern, who is the person who actually runs the factory and leads the people who work there, all united by the spirit of survival.

3.

With the advance of the Allied forces and the retreat of the Nazis, the Reich decided to close the concentration camps and accelerate the mass extermination of the Jews. Initially, they began to incinerate the dead Jews in Krakow itself. Later, they began to send 60 human beings to the Auschwitz ovens every day. Between 1939 and 1945, 6 million Jews were murdered in the various extermination camps in the European countries dominated by the Third Reich.

Gradually, Schindler becomes more attached to the accountant Stern and his other Jewish employees, whom he had previously considered as mere pieces of his property. On a personal level, Schindler experiences a change in his perception of the world and life, becoming more humanistic.

Upon realizing that the Krakow Concentration Camp in Poland was about to be demobilized and that the army was not interested in continuing to purchase supplies, Schindler obtained a new contract from the German army, this time for the production of ammunition. This decision was part of his idea of ​​saving his employees from extermination in the Auschwitz Gas Chambers.

He invested almost all of his assets in the purchase of 1.200 Jews, paying the price negotiated with Amon Göet, an SS officer and Chief of the Krakow Concentration Camp, and obtained authorization to transfer them to a new Concentration Camp in Zwittau-Brinnlitz, in the former Czechoslovakia (his hometown during the Austro-Hungarian Empire), where he began producing ammunition in a new factory.

He hurriedly put together, with the accountant Stern, the list of Jews, for the total price of which he had sufficient resources of his own.

When they were transferred, the men and women were sent on separate trains. Inadvertently, the women's train was sent to Auschwitz. Schindler personally negotiated with the Nazi officer to return the women, a deal that was paid for in diamonds. Another success was achieved by a different Oscar Schindler, more humane and now committed to saving lives.

During all these years, Schindler faced great obstacles in his negotiations with his Nazi peers, in the dangerous give and take, in the attempt to convince officials over whom he had no influence, running the risk of being arrested; a true struggle for survival, at first thinking about his business and, later, only about protecting his employees.

Schindler continued to protect the lives of his workers by avoiding summary executions that were commonly carried out by the Nazis.

The ammunition they produced did not pass the army's quality control and, for this reason, Schindler began to buy ammunition on the black market with his own money to honor his contract with the German army.

He wins back his wife and leaves his mistresses and orgies behind. The factory operates in fits and starts until Germany surrenders in 1945.

With the surrender of Germany, the order from above was to shoot all Jews. Schindler convinced the Germans who controlled the concentration camp not to shoot the Jewish workers in his factory, in disobedience to the Reich's orders. Due to the advance of Soviet troops and Schindler's requests, the Germans abandoned the camp without killing the Jews.

Schindler, bitter about not having been able to save more people, bids farewell to his employees, and receives a letter explaining his humanitarian adventures, signed by all of them. In his farewell he also receives a ring, made of gold extracted from the tooth of one of the Jews, who had agreed to donate it voluntarily, with the following inscription from the Talmud: “Whoever saves one life, saves the whole world.”

In his relationship with his Jewish employees, Schindler developed as a person and made every effort to stop the cycle of the Holocaust. Schindler fled Czechoslovakia with his wife Emilie, both wearing Jewish uniforms.

Czechoslovakia is occupied by the Soviet army. The Jews are free to go their own way and are advised against returning to Poland.

Schindler faces many difficulties in his escape, dealing with Americans, French and Swiss. In the process, his last possessions are confiscated. Finally, in France, when he manages to prove his innocence, he and his wife have nothing more than the clothes on their backs. But they have the protection of the Schindlerjuden, who were now his family. They went to live for a while in Munich, Germany, and then decided to cross the Atlantic to live in Argentina. A dozen Jewish friends went with him.

In 1949 he was paid an ex gratia of $15.000 and given a reference (“To Whom It May Concern”) signed by M. W. Beckelman, vice-chairman of the organization’s Executive Board: “The American Committee of the Distribution Board has thoroughly investigated Mr. Schindler’s activities during the war and occupation… Our unqualified recommendation is that organizations and individuals to whom Mr. Schindler may approach should do everything possible to assist him in recognition of his eminent services…

Under the pretext of running a Nazi forced labor factory, first in Poland and later in Czechoslovakia, Mr. Schindler managed to recruit as his employees and protect Jews destined to die in Auschwitz and other infamous concentration camps… Witnesses reported to our Committee that Schindler’s “camp at Brinnlitz was the only one in the Nazi-occupied territories where a Jew was never killed, or even beaten, but on the contrary was always treated as a human being.”

Now, when he is going to start a new life, we must help him, as he helped our brothers.

For ten years he devoted himself to agricultural production, but ended up going bankrupt. Perhaps, as some commented, because he did not have a Stern to help him. He returned to Germany. His wife Emilie remained in Argentina. He went to live in Frankfurt where he founded a cement factory, which was also unsuccessful. Every year he was invited to visit Israel to pay tribute. Interviews in Israel, republished in Germany, did not help him at all. In Frankfurt he was booed, insulted and stoned.

Os Schindlerjuden They continue to keep him under moral and financial protection. Schindler dies on October 9, 1974. In accordance with his wishes, he is buried in a Catholic cemetery in Jerusalem.

*Marcos de Queiroz Grillo He is an economist and has a master's degree in administration from UFRJ.

Reference

Thomas Keneally. Schindler's List. Translation: Tati Moraes. Rio de Janeiro, Record, 2021, 424 pages. [https://amzn.to/41aujtS]

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