Mietek Pemper

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Mietek Pemper
Pemper in April 1940
Born
Mieczysław Pemper

(1920-03-24)24 March 1920
Kraków, Poland
Died7 June 2011(2011-06-07) (aged 91)
Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany
Known forAssisted Oskar Schindler in his rescue activities.
Notable workThe Road to Rescue

Mieczysław "Mietek" Pemper (24 March 1920 – 7 June 2011) was a Polish-born German

Holocaust survivor. Pemper helped compile and type Oskar Schindler's now-famous list, which saved 1,200 people from being killed in the Holocaust during World War II.[1][2]

Early life

Pemper was born into a

Jewish family in Kraków, Poland on 24 March 1920 to Jakub and Regina Pemper. He had one younger brother, Stefan Pemper. In Polish, "Mietek" is short for "Mieczysław", and his family and friends referred to him as such. From early childhood, Pemper was bilingual in Polish and German.[2] He studied law at Jagiellonian University and business administration at the Kraków University of Economics simultaneously.[2]

Płaszów and Oskar Schindler

Pemper in 1938.

Pemper was 19 years old when

Judenrat, the Kraków Ghetto's Jewish administration.[2] Pemper also acted as a German-Polish interpreter for the Kraków Ghetto residents and typed up radio broadcasts from the BBC.[3]

The Kraków Ghetto had started deportations by the end of 1942; between 13 and 15 March 1943 it was fully liquidated. Pemper was deported from the ghetto to

stenographer to Amon Göth, Płaszów's notorious commandant, due to his previous work at the Kraków Ghetto's Judenrat.[1] Pemper's position as Göth's assistant gave him rare access to documents sent to Göth from Nazi authorities.[1] By working in Göth's office, Pemper also became an acquaintance of Oskar Schindler, an ethnic German businessman and industrialist with ties to the black market. At first, Schindler wanted to profit from the German invasion of Poland and as the war ensued, Schindler decided to open an enamelware factory in Kraków using mostly Jewish labor. Later, he became sympathetic to his workers and used his position to protect them.[1] Itzhak Stern, an accountant and Pemper's closest friend in Göth's office, persuaded Pemper that Schindler could be trusted.[3]

Pemper typed his first letter to Oskar Schindler in March 1943, without the knowledge that Schindler had sympathies for his Jewish workers.[2] Through his work in the office, Pemper discovered in 1944 that the Nazis intended to close all factories not directly tied to the war effort, including Schindler's enamelware factory and the other facilities connected to Płaszów.[1] These closures would likely mean that Płaszów's Jewish inmates would be deported to a death camp. Pemper personally alerted Schindler to the plans and persuaded him to switch production from enamelware to anti-tank grenades to save Schindler's workers.[1][2] Pemper provided Schindler with as little information as possible, for fear that Schindler could possibly implicate him in the sharing of classified Nazi secrets that were retained in the Płaszów camp's administrative office.[3]

Pemper helped develop the now famous "Schindler's List" to save as many Jewish workers as possible. In collaboration with Schindler and others in the Płaszów concentration camp including Itzhak Stern, he compiled and typed the list of over 1,000 Jewish inmates deemed "decisive for the Nazi war effort." Many on the list worked for Schindler with additional names added just before the transport. Those on the list, including Pemper himself, were transferred to Schindler's new factory located in Brněnec, Czechoslovakia, in October 1944. This transfer ultimately saved the lives of those who were on the list. Schindler also included Pemper's father, mother, and brother on the list. However, Pemper's mother Regina, because of illness, was left behind in Auschwitz, but she survived until liberation.

At the end of the war, Oskar Schindler gave a speech to his Jewish factory workers, urging: "Don't thank me for your survival... thank your valiant Stern and Pemper, who stared death in the face constantly."[3]

Pemper testified against Göth at his September 1946 trial in Kraków following the end of the war. Göth was sentenced to death and executed in 1946.[1]

Later life

Pemper moved to the city of

Jewish-Christian relations and reconciliation. He kept close contact with Oskar Schindler until Schindler's death in 1974.[2]

He served as a consultant for Steven Spielberg's 1993 film, Schindler's List. The movie minimized Pemper's role in collaborating with Schindler during the war. Spielberg sought to simplify the film's storyline by creating a composite character, portrayed by actor Ben Kingsley, based on the historical roles of Mietek Pemper, Itzhak Stern and Abraham Bankier.[5] However, Pemper dismissed his diminished role in the film, saying his accomplishment was not the list that was compiled and typed, but "the multifarious acts of resistance that, like tiny stones being placed into a mosaic one by one, had made the whole process possible," according to The Daily Telegraph. Spielberg paid tribute to both Pemper and Stern outside of the film, calling them heroes. Pemper himself was portrayed by actor Grzegorz Kwas in the film.[1][2]

In 2001, he was awarded with the Merit Cross 1st Class.[6] Pemper's adopted city of Augsburg awarded him a civic medal in 2003. They also named him as an honorary citizen in 2007.

Pemper submitted to an in-depth film interview in Vienna in June 2005 for UK company Gigatel Cyf (Ltd). Pemper spoke at great length about his experience from childhood to the aftermath of his experiences during the Holocaust, specifically at the

Mauthausen, and Linz camps. Some of the contents of this unique interview are included in the (UK 2016) – (US 2017) release of the Film – Destination Unknown and includes testimony not included in Pemper's autobiography The Road To Rescue.[3] The Road to Rescue was published on 11 March 2011, shortly before Pemper's death.[4][7]

A four-hour-long interview of Pemper (in German) is also available online on the

USC Shoah Foundation
website. The interview, conducted on 13 September 1997, covers the period before and during his captivity, and reveals details about Göth and Schindler.

Pemper died in Augsburg, Germany on 7 June 2011, at the age of 91. He never married and left no close family. He was buried in Augsburg's Jewish cemetery and municipal flags were lowered to

half-staff in his honour. In tribute to Pemper, Augsburg's mayor Kurt Gribl said, "With Mietek Pemper, the city has lost an important builder of bridges between the Jewish and Christian religions and a contributor to reconciliation."[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k "Mietek Pemper". The Daily Telegraph. 15 June 2011. Retrieved 26 June 2011.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Martin, Douglas (18 June 2011). "Mietek Pemper, 91, Camp Inmate Who Compiled Schindler's List". The New York Times. Retrieved 26 June 2011.
  3. ^
    ISBN 978-1-59051-286-9
    . Retrieved 27 June 2011.
  4. ^ a b Franklin, Ruth (31 October 2008). "Books About Oskar Schindler – 'The Road to Rescue,' by Mietek Pemper and 'Searching for Schindler,' by Thomas Keneally". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 August 2018.
  5. ISBN 9780465002535
    .
  6. ISSN 0174-4917
    . Retrieved 27 August 2018.
  7. ^ "The Road to Rescue by Mietek Pemper | PenguinRandomHouse.com". PenguinRandomhouse.com. Retrieved 23 August 2018.

External links

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