The Other Schindlers
Page 15
22. Angela Schluter, e-mail to the author, 17 August 2003, and telephone conversation of 12 January 2010.
23. Hahn-Beer, The Nazi Officer’s Wife, p. 153.
24. Angela Schluter, telephone conversation with the author, 12 January 2010.
25. Edith Hahn-Beer, obituary in the Jewish Chronicle, 7 May 2009.
26. Angela Schluter, telephone conversation with the author, 4 July 2003.
27. Lewis Smith, ‘Last dream of Jewish survivor who fell in love with a Nazi’, The Times, 24 May 2004, p. 11.
28. The information for this section comes mostly from Video No 639204 of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, recorded on 13 May 1998 in Jerusalem by Betty Eppel.
29. David Eppel, ‘Key to Righteousness’ in Jewish Chronicle, 28 July 2000.
30. Ibid.
31. Betty Eppel, e-mail to the author, 10 February 2004.
32. Victor Guicherd, letter to Yad Vashem, c. 1980. Translated from French by David Eppel.
33. Betty Eppel, notes of telephone conversation with the author, 6 March 2004.
34. Eppel, ‘Key to Righteousness’, 28 July 2000.
35. Betty Eppel, e-mail to the author, 24 February 2004.
36. Betty Eppel, notes of telephone conversation with the author, 1 March 2004.
37. Ibid., 19 December 2009.
38. Manli Ho, ‘Dr Feng Shan Ho’, unpublished memoir, 2001, p. 1.
39. Gail Lichtman, ‘The People’s Hero’, Jerusalem Post, 1 March 2004, p. 2.
40. Mark O’Neil, ‘The Angel of Austria’s Jews’, South China Morning Post, 2000.
41. Ibid.
42. Manli Ho, unpublished memoir, p. 2.
43. Marion Koebner, ‘Charles Peter Carter’, AJR Information, Vol. LV, No 12, December 2000, p. 2.
44. Otto Fleming, e-mail to the author, 1 July 2004.
45. Otto Fleming, telephone conversation with the author, 1 July 2004.
46. Lotte Marcus, ‘Letter to ex-Viennese Shanghailanders’, 8 August 2003, p. 2, www.chgs.umn.edu/Visual__Artistic_Resources/Diplomat_Rescuers, accessed 5 September 2004.
47. Manli Ho, unpublished memoir, p. 3.
48. Ibid.
49. Marcus, ‘Letter to ex-Viennese Shanghailanders’, p. 2.
50. Manli Ho, unpublished memoir, p. 4.
51. Ibid., p. 5.
52. Anthea Lawson, ‘Ho the hero in line for Israeli award’, The Times, 10 February 2000.
53. Manli Ho, e-mail to the author, 22 June 2004, based on a speech entitled ‘Remembering my Father, Dr Ho Feng Shan’, p. 1.
54. Ibid., p. 2.
55. Manli Ho, unpublished memoir, p. 5.
56. Manli Ho, e-mail to the author, 22 June 2004, p. 1.
57. Lichtman, ‘The People’s Hero’, p. 1.
58. Manli Ho, e-mail to the author, 22 June 2004, p. 2.
59. Manli Ho, unpublished memoir, p. 5.
60. Manli Ho, ‘Remembering my father, Dr Ho Feng Shan’ in China Daily, 26 September 2007.
61. Lichtman, ‘The People’s Hero’, p. 2.
62. Ellen Cassedy, ‘We are all Here: Facing History in Lithuania’, pp. 77–85, Bridges Association 2007, www.judaicvilnius.com/repository/dockumentai/cassedy_bridges.pdf?, accessed 27 December 2009.
63. Most of this narrative is based on the writer’s interview with Irena Veisaite in Huddersfield on 23 December 2000.
64. Michail Erenburg and Viktorija Sakaité, Hands Bringing Life and Bread, Vol. 1 (Vilnius: 1997), p. 61. * Irena has corrected this translation to read ‘love to your fellow man’, e-mail to the author, 6 November 2001. ** Paneriai is a town 9–10km from Vilnius, where all the Jews from Vilnius were killed by the Nazis. There is a Holocaust memorial there now.
65. Irena Veisaite, letter to the author, 23 July 2003.
66. A gymnasium in Europe is the equivalent of a sixth-form college or grammar school for 14–18 year olds in preparation for university. It comes from ancient Greece where the term was used for both intellectual and physical education. In Britain it is used exclusively for physical activity.
67. Irena Veisaite, interview with the author, 23 December 2000.
68. Cassedy, ‘We are all Here: Facing History in Lithuania’, p. 78.
69. www.humanrights.gov.sc/stockholmforum/2001/page1272.html, accessed 26 December 2009.
70. Cassedy, ‘We are all Here: Facing History in Lithuania’, p. 79.
71. Ibid., p. 80.
72. Erenburg and Sakaité, Hands Bringing Life and Bread, p. 61.
73. Iris Origo, Images and Shadows: Part of a Life (London: John Murray, 1998), p. 88.
74. Richard Owen, ‘To the Tuscan manor born’ in The Times (Register), 25 July 2002.
75. Origo, Images and Shadows, p. 226.
76. Ibid., pp. 228–9.
77. Ibid., p. 227.
78. Amy Gottlieb, Men of Vision: Anglo-Jewry’s Aid to Victims of the Nazi Regime 1933–1945 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1998), p. 99.
79. Walter Block, ‘Anna Essinger and Bunce Court School’ in Gathered Stories: Commemorating the Kindertransport (Friends House, 2008).
80. Frank Auerbach, letter to author, 30 November 2009.
81. Robert Hughes, Frank Auerbach (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990), p. 17. A ‘stetl’ is meant to be ‘shtetl’ – the Yiddish word for a small town in Eastern Europe predominantly occupied by Orthodox Jews. These towns were destroyed by the Holocaust. The inhabitants are often contrasted with the urbane, assimilated Jews who predominated in Central Europe.
82. Hughes, Frank Auerbach, p. 18.
83. Origo, Images and Shadows, p. 228.
84. Harris and Oppenheimer, Into the Arms of Strangers (London: Bloomsbury, 2000), p. 277.
85. Louise London, Whitehall and the Jews, 1933–1948: British Immigration and the Holocaust (Cambridge: CUP, 2000).
86. Iris Origo, War in Val d’Orcia: An Italian War Diary, 1943–1944 (London: Allison and Busby, 1999), p. 25.
87. Origo, Images and Shadows, p. 241.
88. Origo, War in Val d’Orcia, p. 100.
89. Ibid., p. 101.
90. Benedetta Origo, e-mail to the author, 1 August 2002.
91. Ibid., 28 September 2002.
92. Ibid., 30 September 2002.
93. Caroline Moorehead, Iris Origo: Marchesa of Val D’Orcia (London: John Murray, 2000), pp. 215–16.
94. Lady Margaret Kagan, http://collections.ushmm.org/artifact/image/b00/00/b0000246.pdf, accessed 23 December 2009.
95. Lady Margaret Kagan, ‘Remembering Vytautas’, unpublished memoir written in the 1990s, given to the author in June 2001, p. 4.
96. Ibid., p. 7.
97. Ibid., pp. 7–8.
98. Stephen Goodell, ‘The Story of Avraham Tory and his Kovno Ghetto Diary’, www.eilagordinlevitan.com.
99. Kagan, telephone conversation with the author, 1 November 2001.
100. Kagan, b0000246.pdf, p. 2.
101. Kagan, ‘Remembering Vytautas’, p. 10.
102. Ibid., p. 12.
103. Ibid., p. 13.
104. Ibid.
105. Ibid., p. 14.
106. Ibid., p. 15.
107. Kagan, b0000246.pdf.
108. Kagan, pp. 19–20.
109. Tam Dalyell, obituary for Lord Kagan in The Independent, 19 January 1995.
110. Kagan, letter to the author, 3 July 2001.
111. Jaap van Proosdij, unpublished memoir dated February 1996, sent to the author in March 2001, p. 6.
112. Jaap van Proosdij, interview with South African journalist Paula Siler, 4 December 1998, p. 1.
113. Jaap van Proosdij, telephone conversation with the author, 17 December 2009.
114. Jaap van Proosdij, letter to the author, 28 December 2003.
115. Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews 1933–45 (London: Penguin, 1990), p. 438.
116. Martin Gilbert, Holocaust Atlas, p. 106.
117. Peta Krost, ‘At last, saviour of 240 Jews gets recognition’, interview in Saturday
Star (South African newspaper), 7 March 1998.
118. Van Proosdij, interview with Paula Siler, p. 1.
119. Ibid., p. 2.
120. Ibid., pp. 2–3.
121. Ibid., p. 3.
122. Prof. Shirley Kossick, ‘Pretoria’s Own Righteous Gentile’ in Pretoria Jewish Chronicle, August 1994, p. 5.
123. Krost, ‘At last, saviour of 240 Jews gets recognition’, 7 March 1998.
124. Ibid.
125. Ibid.
126. Van Proosdij, letter to the author, 23 December 2003.
127. Krost, ‘At last, saviour of 240 Jews gets recognition’, 7 March 1998.
128. Van Proosdij, interview with Paula Siler, p. 2.
129. Van Proosdij, letter to the author, 25 March 2001.
130. Van Proosdij, letter to the author, 4 July 2001.
131. Krost, ‘At last, saviour of 240 Jews gets recognition’, 7 March 1998.
132. Van Proosdij, interview with Paula Siler, p. 1.
133. Van Proosdij, letter to the author, 12 January 2004.
134. Van Proosdij, interview with Paula Siler, p. 1.
135. Jewish Agency Press Release, 27 May 2003, www.jafi.org.il/press/2003/may/may27.htm.
136. John Schoen, letter to the author, 20 January 2001.
137. John Schoen, telephone conversation with the author, 14 March 2001.
138. Ibid., 17 January 2001.
139. John Schoen’s notes about Suze, sent to the author with a letter, 20 May 2001.
140. Ed van Rijswijk, notes of 1 January and e-mail of 2 January 2010.
141. Dutch Famine of 1944, http://everything2.com/title/Dutch+Famine+of+1944, accessed 2 January 2010.
142. Ria Sanders, notes of 2 April and letter of 8 April 2002 sent to the author.
143. Richard Evans, ‘I want Spielberg to tell how we hid little Suze from Nazis’ in Wales on Sunday, 12 September 1999, p. 8.
144. John’s notes, 20 May 2001, p. 1.
145. Richard Evans, ‘I want Spielberg to tell how we hid little Suze from Nazis’, p. 8.
146. Conversation with Josie Martin in London, 17 November 2003.
147. John Schoen, telephone conversation with the author, 14 March 2001.
148. John’s notes, 20 May 2001.
149. John Schoen, ‘Life Under the Nazis’ in the Cardiff Post, 15 May 1986.
150. Ed van Rijswijk, notes of 1 January 2010.
151. Richard Evans, ‘I want Spielberg to tell how we hid little Suze from Nazis’, p. 9.
152. Arnold Brown, telephone conversation with the author, 22 November 2001.
153. Peter Schoen, notes to the author and e-mail dated 2 January 2010.
154. Peter Schoen, telephone conversation with the author, 17 December 2009.
155. Van Rijswijk, notes of 1 January 2010.
156. Van Rijswijk, e-mail to the author, 2 January 2010.
157. Ibid., 8 January 2010.
158. Bert Jan Flim, Saving the Children: History of the Organized Effort to Rescue Jewish Children in the Netherlands 1942–1945 (Bethesda, Maryland: CDL Press), pp. 40–2; sent by Ed van Rijswijk, 8 January 2010. Bert Flim’s family was involved in these Resistance groups.
159. Arleen Kennedy, e-mail to the author, 4 January 2010 (14:46).
160. Van Rijswijk, notes of 1 January 2010.
161. Arleen Kennedy, e-mails of 4 January 2010 (14:46, 15:14 and 16:08).
3
RESCUERS WITH OTHER MOTIVES
Oskar Schindler (1908–74), who became known across the world through Stephen Spielberg’s 1994 film, did not live to see his surname become a generic term for non-Jewish rescuers in the Holocaust. Other rescuers are referred to as Schindlers of various types: Varian Fry was described as the ‘Artists’ Schindler’;1 Henk Huffener was called ‘Surrey’s own Oscar Schindler’;2 Chiune Sugihara was described as ‘Japan’s Schindler’;3 Dr Ho was called the ‘Oskar Schindler of China’;4 and the British Ambassador to Lisbon in 1940, Sir Ronald Hugh Campbell, has been called the ‘British Schindler’.5
However, Oskar’s complex personality and motives exemplify many of the aspects of all rescuers and therefore a study of his role as a rescuer is necessary before other rescuers’ motives are discussed.
At the end of the war, Oskar Schindler wrote about his efforts to move his factory, together with his 1,000 Jewish employees, from Krakow to Brinlitz in the Sudetenland. Hoffman, the owner of the factory, objected and as a good Nazi tried every possible way of stopping the transfer. ‘He went to the Gestapo, to the Landrat, to the district governor, urging that Schindler not be allowed to fill the area with his Jews, who are liable to bring smallpox, attract the attention of enemy bombers etc.’ But Schindler succeeded in getting permission from SS Headquarters:
It is impossible for a person from the outside to imagine how hard I had to work before I succeeded in carrying out my decision to transfer the Jews, before I saw the 1,000 people lodged in their new place. The general confusion which reigned at that period, the bureaucracy, the envy and the malevolence of various people brought me at times to the brink of despair. I was sustained, however, by a burning desire to save the Jews, some of whom had become close, loyal friends of mine during the preceding 5–6 years, from the crematoriums of Auschwitz or some other place, after I had succeeded in protecting them for so many years, and at the cost of so much personal effort, from the clutches of the S.S.6
Oskar Schindler was not a religious person but he was humane. Victor Dortheimer, No 385 on Schindler’s list, one of the Jews who got to know Oskar best, said he knew Schindler would look after him from the first time he met him: ‘It wasn’t anything he said – it was just that he was polite to me, and spoke to me like I was a normal human being. None of the other Germans treated me like a human being.’7 Victor believed Schindler’s motives for helping the Jews were his sense of adventure and morality: ‘He was always a little bit drunk and always with a beautiful woman. He was a gentleman gangster, but I think when he saw what was happening to the Jews he knew he had to help us.’
Victor was a decorator and was chosen to decorate SS Commandant Amon Goethe’s villa, and was then seconded to paint in Schindler’s factory. He got to know Schindler as they sat drinking vodka in Oskar’s flat. They exchanged confidences and Victor asked him for favours for his co-workers. Victor described him as a skilful wheeler-dealer. ‘He made a fortune which he spent on protecting us, his Jews. If the Germans had found out, he would have been shot.’8
In 1995 Victor Dortheimer was the subject of a television documentary in which Schindler’s actions were described. He had saved, among others, two women from Auschwitz who had Victor’s surname – one was his wife Helena and the other was his brother’s wife – they were Nos 28 and 29 on the list. Victor said the factory was a huge deception. It did not produce anything:
We did not produce even one cartridge. The company acted as a camouflage to protect us. What is more, Schindler allowed us to listen to BBC on the car radio in the garage. We knew what was happening on the front even earlier than our German guards. If they had caught us, we would have been shot.9
Another perspective was offered by Herbert Steinhouse, a Canadian journalist, who knew Oskar in the immediate post-war period in Germany. He had met a neighbour of the Schindlers from Svitavy,10 Schindler’s hometown, whose father had been the local Rabbi. He told Steinhouse:
This fellow said that as a man who was a Sudetenland Fascist, was a member of the Henlein party which was later absorbed into the Greater Germany’s Nazi party, Schindler apparently had been a true believer in everything but one. That was the racial policy. He had been friendly with several of the Sudetenland Jews. He’d speak with his neighbor and the neighbor’s father, the Rabbi. They’d talk about the sophisticated Yiddish literature in Poland and Czechoslovakia, about the folk tales and the mythology and the anecdotes and the ancient Jewish traditions of the villages of eastern Poland, or Moldova.11
Herbert kept a record of meetings in Munich in 1948 with Os
kar and Emilie Schindler. The subsequent article was only published in 1994. He speculated on Schindler’s motives, noting that Ifo Zwicker, whom Schindler had also saved, knew him from their hometown: ‘As a Zwittau citizen I never would have considered him capable of all these wonderful deeds. Before the war, you know, everyone here called him Gauner (swindler or sharper).’12 Oskar himself used a specific German word to describe himself – ‘maßlos’ – which means literally ‘without moderation or restraint, but it has the additional connotation of the presence of an irresistable inner force that drives a person beyond what is considered acceptable behavior’.13
Schindler was a good judge of character – he chose a future Israeli Supreme Court judge to produce forged documents. Moshe Bejski described Schindler ‘warts and all’:
Schindler was a drunkard, Schindler was a womanizer. His relations with his wife were rather bad. Each time he had not one but several girlfriends. After the war, he was quite unable to run a normal business …
You had to take him as he was. Schindler was a very complex person. Schindler was a good human being. He was against evil. He acted spontaneously. He was adventurous, someone who takes risks, but I am not sure he enjoyed taking them. He did things because people asked him to do them. He loved children. He saw all the children and grandchildren of those he had rescued as his own family. He was very, very sensitive. If Schindler had been a normal man, he would not have done what he did. Everything he did put him in danger …
One day in the late 1960s I asked Schindler why he did all this. His answer was very simple: ‘I knew the people who worked for me. When you know people, you have to behave towards them like human beings …’ That was Schindler.14
The psychotherapist Luitgard Wundheiler wrote a long article about Schindler’s moral development during the Holocaust in 1986, long before Spielberg’s film. She herself is of interest because her father was a judge in Germany. In 1936, in common with all German civil servants, he was asked to join the Nazi Party by signing a loyalty oath. He discussed the issue with his 14-year-old daughter Luitgard, and explained the possible consequences which included his death. In fact, although he did not sign and was dismissed as a judge, he got a job as a court messenger for the duration of the war and they survived living in poverty. Fifty years later her article discussed how Schindler changed from being an impulsive and opportunistic helper, to a compassionate person and finally a principled altruist, and also from a man whose concern was limited to people he knew, to many he did not know.15