A Lista de Schindler – a Verdadeira História

by Mietek Pemper

A verdadeira e mais completa história sobre a lista de Schindler, que salvou milhares da morte certa, contada por um sobrevivente e importante personagem deste drama, Mietek Pemper, que mesmo sendo judeu atuou como secretário de Amon Goth, o nazista que comandava o campo de concentração. Devido a sua importante atuação em toda a operação de salvamento ele foi consultor do filme a Lista de Schindler de Steven Spielberg. Pemper foi a única testemunha que poderia dar uma visão completa e precisa de operação de Schindler. Seu livro é cuidadoso e triste, contando o triunfo de ambos e da incapacidade de superar a dor.

Genres: History, Holocaust, Nonfiction, World War II, Biography, Memoir, War

280 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2005

Reviews

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good read. I had no idea about Mietek Pemper and his courageous maneuverings that paved the way for Schindler's List and then also, how the List came about. Includes a handful of photos and also information about the outcome of many of the people who are described in the book. Glad I read it.

[Paula · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't put this down. The book details the author's experience as a Polish Jew in the Plaszow concentration camp, forced to work as the personal stenographer for Amon Goth (Ralph Fiennes' character in the film Schindler's List, for reference). This position afforded him the opportunity to discover some of the inner workings of the SS, including the intended fate of the Plaszow camp and all its inmates. He used this to his advantage, subtly outwitting Goth on several occasions, and ultimately saving the lives of countless Jews. Some of these Jews worked for Oskar Schindler in his factory, and it's because of the author that there were any Jews left in the camp for Schindler to rescue.

Mietek Pemper is clearly well-educated, and impressively objective. His analysis of the events and his own circumstances, as well as his ability to refrain from exaggeration and speculation, make his writing even more compelling. He is modest in the credit that he claims for himself, often attributing his peculiar position to Goth or the assistance and influence of others, as parts in his success. But it is clear that his education and his "street smarts" play the largest role in his rescue efforts.

This is a book I am sure I will read again in the future, and highly recommend to anyone interested in Oskar Schindler, Nazi concentration camps, or the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto in Poland.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pemper was an apparently unassuming young Jew who made himself useful to Amon Goth, the head of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in Poland, in part because of his knowledge of the German language. As Goth's secretary, Pemper was ideally placed to translate meetings, to take dictation, and to look at secret documents. He knew when selections were going to take place, he knew how badly the war was going for the Germans toward the end, he knew the complete workings of the camp. And he knew Oskar Schindler. When it became clear that Kraków-Płaszów would be shut down if it didn't increase its contribution to the direct war effort (weapons-making), he came up with pumped up figures that Goth used to keep the camp open, thus saving people from being deported to Auschwitz, and, most importantly, he convinced Schindler to change what he was producing in his on-site factory so that it too would remain in production. When Kraków-Płaszów was being shut down and Schindler was moving his factory, it was Pemper who provided him with the famous "list" of names--his factory workers and their families who Schindler then went on to famously save. An interesting behind the scenes look at the running of a concentration camp from the point of view of a Jew who had unusual access to information; and an enlightening look at Schindler, who came away with a lot of glory.

[Arlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took a little getting used to. In the end, I fell in love with Pemper. What a brave young man. I hope there are more men like him and Oskar Schindlre out there to prevent anything like this happening again. Maybe those in Africa in the deep countrysides never heard about the Holocaust? I don't expect everyone to see things my way, however, I feel that this knowledge could have helped a lot of people in other countries right now who are being opressed, imprisoned, murdered by their own people. It could even give the people a purpose to help their fellow men facing horrible lives/death.

I felt the fear he and the other Jews lived under. I had some emotional moments.

It was worth the time to read and understand more about what Really happened.

[Jed Sorokin-Altmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important read. While a prisoner at the Płaszów concentration camp, Mietek Pemper was assigned to be the personal secretary/stenographer for Commandant Amon Göth. In that role, where he was in danger of being killed not only through the official genocidal aspects of the Holocaust but also faced the risk of death at the hands of the capriciously homicidal Göth, Pemper was able to gather information used to help his fellow Jews, he was able to gather information he'd later testify to in warcrime trials against Nazis, and he was an instrumental figure in the development of what became known as Schindler's List. 5 stars.

[Carol Dimitriou · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the eyewitness account of how Schindler's list came to be. It is written by the man who was able, as Amon Goth's personal stenographer at the Plaszow concentration camp, to pass on classified information to Oscar Schindler, and thereby save 1,200 Jews from death. The list was used to keep these Jews working at Schindler's factory as "essential workers" needed to produce material for Hitler's war machine.

[Yenta Knows · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finish date is accurate. Start date probably December 1 or 2.

Five stars because everyone should read this account of a preternaturally calm, fearless 22 year old who, as Oskar Schindler said "stared death in the face every day." Time after time I said to myself "I could not have done that. I do not have the nerves. I do not have the nerve."

One more point. The Nazis are, in the popular imagination, a supernaturally efficient, disciplined, and organized killing machine. And yet Pemper's up close account includes many stories that counter that image. There's the story about the Jews of Krakow being robbed of their fur coats because these were needed by troops attacking Russia. (WTF? Invade Russia and repeat Napoleon's fatal mistake?) There's the vicious infighting between the various organizations and factions, a great waste of time. There is Goth being investigated for fraud. There are the credulous SS brass being deceived by Pemper's complicated, official looking, but falsified production tables.

Up close, these Nazis look like fools. Evil, vicious fools, but fools nonetheless.

We thought the bumbling Sergeant Schultz was a parody. Maybe he was real.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OsXrpxo...

[Sarah Gatewood · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have had this on my to read list for a while. It has been a few years since I read the actual book titled Schlinder's List so I am having a hard time comparing the two books. I feel this book is very comprehensive and gives a very clear picture of what eventually led to Schlinder's List. I think it helps that Mietek was so involved in the day to day activities at Plaszow concentration camp, he has a easy time of remembering things, and he was asked to write down some of his experiences shortly after the war so he has that to refer to. Mietek was a young man when the mistreatment of the Jews came to be a standard every day practice. Despite his young age, Mietek came to have an important job under the Commandant Amon Goth. His job as stenographer offered insider information and eventually a working friendship with Oskar Schlinder. Mietek survived the war and eventually went on to testify against Amon Goth and be an interpreter in other war crimes trials. I highly recommend this read if you are interested in The Holocaust.

[Erin Woodall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very interesting. This man was able to obtain so much classified information that helped in the trails. I can not imagine his thoughts or feelings having to work beside Goth. He must have been a very strong man to have witnessed and learned so much and stayed as sane as he seems in this book.

[Nathan Albright · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a fascinating example of the sort of tell-all memoir that seeks to correct misunderstandings in the aftermath of something that is culturally significant, namely Schindler's list in this case.  The author himself is a somewhat ambiguous character, a multi-lingual Polish Jew who might be considered a half-collaborator, an office employee of a brutal SS officer in the Plaszów ghetto/concentration camp who shrewdly sought to survive by distancing himself as much as possible from being viewed as an insider, and one who appears to have a couple of scores to settle with other half-collaborators concerning their accounts and role in World War II.  This work, both as an example of a slightly revisionist historical memoir, and in its polemical aspects, is worth being read.  Not only does it tell a compelling (if somewhat grim and very tense) story, but it also demonstrates the complexity of writing about World War II, even such a seemingly straightforward matter of how a corrupt but decent businessman was able to save the lives of over 1,000 Jews in the midst of the horrors of Hitler's "final solution," and how divided the Jewish community was even as it was being gutted by the violence of Nazi Germany.

This particular book is about 200 pages or so and consists of material from the author's experience.  This is a memoir, and one where the author is cautious to discuss things that he saw and experienced and to state when his own thought processes rather than direct evidence is involved in making sense of things.  The author begins with a discussion of his peacetime youth in Krakow and his early experiences with anti-semitism as a college student as World War II approached.  There is then a discussion of the invasion and his life in the ghetto.  The book takes a grim and dramatic turn when the author discusses how it was that he came to work for the sadistic SS commandeur Amon Göth, who would regularly kill prisoners just because he could.  The author moves on to discuss the fraudulent production tables that allowed the concentration camp to survive liquidation, gives a surprising revelation that came up during his testimony as a witness against Gerhard Maurer in the postwar anti-Nazi trials, and discussed how it was that Plaszów became a concentration camp.  After that the author waxes eloquent on Oskar Schindler's righteous deeds and generosity towards the Jews and how it was that the list came to be.  After this the author closes the book with a discussion of the liberation of the camp in Sudetenland where they ended up, the author's return to Krakow after the war, and the lack of remorse of the Nazi murderers and why we must never forget World War II, along with some appendices, including one which corrects Izak Stern's report on Schindler's list.

What kind of scores does the author have to settle?  For one, the author seeks to present himself as an unwilling helper of the SS commander of the Krakow concentration camp, rather than those who willingly helped.  To be sure, most of the people in this book seem to be semi-collaborators who sought to make their own position in the midst of an intolerably difficult situation, but it is noteworthy that the author is willing to be intensely critical towards Izak Stern to a lesser extent and to a greater extent towards Marcel Goldberg, who appears repeatedly as a corrupt and self-serving person who sought to profit off of his access to Schindler's list and his ability to add and remove names based on who gave him something, which the author clearly views as a loathsome degree of corruption.  The division within the Jewish community of Poland is a lamentable, albeit unintentional, reality that appears here, and this division was not resolved either during the war or in the postwar period itself, where the author is clearly aware of various memoirs and accounts of his fellow survivors of the Holocaust and interested in setting the story straight insofar as he can from his own experience as a privileged but deeply vulnerable prisoner during World War II.

[Yoursexylibrarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mietek Pemper's Holocaust memoir is not the typical Holocaust memoir. Pemper presents an entirely different side of events using data and evidence he gathered while working in a concentration camp commandant's office. Pemper explains the history of Krakow Jews, the political elements that helped pave the way for Schindler to do what he did best, and the hierarchy of the SS leadership.

This book is an incredible wealth of knowledge with very little of Pemper's emotional turmoil revealed.

[kathy McNulty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Mietek for writing such a profound work of non-fiction and for setting the record straight. Your personal witness to this most egregious period of humanity and your moral courage in the face of these ‘crimes against humanity’ gives us all hope that such depravity and evil will never again mark humanity.
Thank you for standing up to the evil of Naziism and persisting in truth!

[Ryan Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an incredible book. I’ve had a decades long interest in Schindler’s List and Mietek Pemper’s memoir is incredibly insightful. His level of access brings all sorts of new information to light. It’s a must read for anyone interested in Oskar Schindler and the Jews he helped save.

[Charlene McGrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a great book to read after Shindler's List. It give more insight into how Shindler got his list.

[Willian Pagnoncelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gostei. É mais suave do que eu imaginava, mas a leitura flui nessa tradução.

[Shelly Jacobson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well written

[Amber M · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read numerous books on the Holocaust but still learned a lot from reading this one. I've read about Schindler and his list but now I feel like I know the background to it all.

[Kim Freitas · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really couldn’t get into it

[Bonnie Scherry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unbelievable book.

[Alison Hardtmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mietek Pemper has written an extraordinary account of his life during the second world war in Krakow, Poland. He was part of the story of "Schindler's List", working as a secretary to the labor camp commandant, Amon Goth, and participating in ways large and small to preserve the lives of many of the inmates of the Plaszow concentration camp. His story is meticulously told, without hyperbole or emotion; Pemper here concentrates on factually accounting the events he lived through. This is not an adventure story; Pemper risks his life repeatedly, but recounts the story in such a way that the reader is not constantly aware of the danger of his position as secretary to a notoriously violent Nazi, who would randomly shoot inmates.

Pemper also recounts his life before and after the war. He testified in war crimes trials in Poland and served as an interpreter. Later, he settled in Augsburg, Germany. Presently, he speaks about his experiences, often to German schoolchildren.

Pemper seems to have survived the unthinkable without bitterness. He closes the book with a chapter on remembering the Holocaust, treating all people as individuals, rather than as members of a good or an evil group and finishes with his personal ethical code which calls for personal responsibility and critical thinking. Altogether an important book and one worth reading.

[D. Pike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stumbled upon this book only because library did not have "Schindler's List" by Thomas Keneally. So glad I read this first because if Mietek Pemper had not been in his role as a Jewish prisoner, and lived to tell about it, there might not have been a Schindler's list. Any story or account of the holocaust is disturbing, but he told just enough --not too graphic-- to make his point. Pemper comes across to me as extremely courageous, compassionate, humble and intelligent, to name a few of his characteristics. Some of the words were hard to understand because of the German language. But this story covers one of the darkest periods in history, and wanted to understand it (as much as I can). Was impressed with the story where Pemper mentions a young SS man Dworschak who refused orders to kill a Jewish mother and her baby. He said that from this example, we must guard against judging people by how they look, by their nationality, their profession or their religion. (All the Germans were not evil) I totally agree with him.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was staggeringly good. It started slow, and seemed very dry, but as the author begins to relate the horrors he's seen, lived through, and tried to resist, the dry, matter of fact deliver simply makes the events starker and more real. He never sensationalizes, and he never makes people less complicated than they are. Pemper was chosen by Goth (the commandant of the Plaszow camp) to be his secretary, a position that was enormously dangerous, given Goth's tendency to kill any Jew at the drop of a hat. But Pemper talks about Goth's letters to his family as well as his murders; you get a sense of him and Schindler and others as a real people, not just stereotypes. Pemper remembers a good SS soldier who stood up to Goth and refused to shoot a Jewish woman and her child, as well as Jews who extorted from and oppressed their fellow inmates. It's an extremely compelling and absorbing book.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned some new information about the Holocaust from this book but the author jumped back and forth in time throughout the book, making it very difficult to follow the sequence of events. It was as if he just started writing without an outline of where he wanted to go. Also, the author also seems to make the assumption the reader is already familiar with the story of Schindler and his list. This book is a slow read and details are not provided about many important events (such as the emptying of the ghetto) and what the people went through. Definitely NOT one of the better books I have read about the Holocaust.

[Klaus Metzger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Die Geschichte einer beispiellosen Rettungsaktion - erzählt von Mietek Pemper, der sie als einziger authentisch erzählen kann. Der Lagerhäftling Mietek Pemper hat die Entstehung von Schindlers Liste (Oskar Schindler) und die vielen Stationen , die zu ihr führten, entscheidend mitgestaltet. Mietek Pemper half Oskar Schindler im Jahre 1957, als letzterer wieder nach Deutschland zurückkam, hier einen Neuanfang zu beginnen, der aber ebenfalls scheiterte. Mietek Pemper lebte bis zu seinem Lebensende (2011) in Augsburg. In meiner Heimatstadt Hildesheim ist Oskar Schindler am 9. Oktober 1974 verstorben. Deshalb macht mich dieses Buch besonders betroffen.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, though fairly short, discussion of life inside a Krakow concentration camp during World War II. Pemper worked as a stenographer for the camp commandant and worked with Oskar Schindler of Schindler's List fame. It jumps around a bit in terms of time but that didn't bother me. He does not emphasize the horror of the camps, but rather the bravery of those who tried to save others. There is also an interesting discussion of his role in the war crimes trials after the war. Well worth reading.

[Kelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

A memoir written by a Jewish man who survived the Holocost with the help of Oskar Schindler. Working in the commandant's office, he is privvy to many classified documents and gives Schindler names and help with the rescue effort. He was key in testifying against many of the SS men. Very intersting.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

Any book dealing with the Holocaust is very difficult to read, but this has one of the more uplifting endings of the ones that I've read. The author describes some unbelievably heartbreaking things, but he focuses on the few bits and pieces of humanity and dignity that he experienced. Incredible story, but the writing was too dry for me in some places.

[Deena · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a completely worthwhile read for anyone interested specifically in Schindler's rescue efforts. It's not a traditional memoir; Mr. Pemper focuses intentionally on his role in the creation of Schindler's list.

It is clear and concise and Mr. Pemper's story is a priceless contribution to the library.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was originally going to read Schindler's List until I found out it was fiction. I liked the way Pemper explained the true story of Schindler's list and compared it to some of the things in the film. He also briefly mentioned the criticisms of Schindler. Whatever his faults, Schindler was loved by those he saved.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting behind the scenes story of a Polish jew who worked as the assistant to the head of a concentration camp tied to Schindler. The storyline gets 4 stars but the some of the writing about timelines is choppy and is a bit confusing. Overall a very worthwhile book to read.