Schindler's Ark

by Thomas Keneally

  The balance of frank desperation in his answer satisfied Amon. He told the boy to sit down and instructed him how the typing was to be set out and the pages numbered. Amon hit the papers with his spatulate fingertips. “I want a first-class job done.” And Pemper thought, That’s the way of it – I can die now for being an escapee, or later in the year for having seen these justifications of Amon’s.

  When Pemper was leaving the villa with the drafts in his hand, Goeth followed him out on to the patio and called a last order. “When you type the list of insurgents,” Amon called companionably, “I want you to leave room above my signature for another name to be inserted.”

  Pemper nodded, discreet as any professional typist. He stood just a half-second, trying for inspiration, some quick answer that would reverse Amon’s order about the extra space. The space for his name. Mietek Pemper. In that hateful torrid silence of Sunday evening in Jerozolimska, nothing plausible came to him.

  “Yes, Herr Commandant,” said Pemper.

  As Pemper stumbled up the road to the Administration Building, he remembered a letter Amon had had him type earlier that summer. It had been addressed to Amon’s father, the Viennese publisher, and was full of filial concern for an allergy which had troubled the old man that spring. Amon hoped that it had lifted by now. The reason Pemper remembered that letter out of all the others was that half an hour before he’d been called into Amon’s office to take it down, the commandant had dragged a girl filing clerk outside and executed her. The juxtaposition of the letter and the execution proved to Pemper that, for Amon, murder and allergies were events of equal weight. And if you told a tractable stenographer to leave a space for his name, it was a matter of course that he left it.

  Pemper sat at the typewriter for more than an hour, but in the end left the space for himself. Not to do that would be even more suddenly fatal. There had been a rumour among Stern’s friends that Schindler had some movement of people in mind, some rescue or other. But tonight rumours from Zablocie meant nothing. Mietek left in each report the space for his own death. And all his remembrance of the commandant’s criminal carbons which he’d held up to mirrors and learned by rote, all that was made futile by the space he left.

  When both typescripts were word perfect, he returned to the villa. Amon kept him waiting by the French windows while he himself sat in the parlour reading the documents. Pemper wondered if his own body would be displayed with some declamatory lettering. So Die All Jewish Bolshevists!

  At last Amon appeared at the windows. “You may go to bed,” he said.

  “Herr Commandant?”

  “I said, you may go to bed.”

  Pemper went. He walked less steadily now. After what he had seen, Amon could not let him live. But perhaps the commandant believed there would be leisure to kill him later. In the meantime, life for a day was still life.

  The space, as it proved, was for a prisoner who, by unwise dealings with men such as John and Hujar, had let it be known he had a cache of diamonds somewhere outside the camp. While Pemper sank into the sleep of the reprieved, Amon had the man summoned to the villa, offered him his life for the diamonds’ location, was shown the place and, of course, executed him and added his name to the reports to Koppe and Oranienburg – to his humble claim of having snuffed the spark of rebellion.

  THIRTY

  The orders, labelled OKH (Army High Command), already sat on Oskar’s desk. Because of the war situation, the Director of Armaments told Oskar, KL Plaszów and therefore the Emalia camp were to be disbanded. Prisoners from Emalia would be sent to Plaszów, to await relocation. Oskar himself was to run down his Zablocie operation, as quickly as possible, retaining on the premises only those technicians necessary for the dismantling of plant. For further instructions, he should apply to the Evacuation Board, OKH, Berlin.

  Oskar’s initial reaction was cool rage. He resented the tone, the sense of a distant official trying to absolve him from further concern. There was a man in Berlin who, not knowing of the black-market bread that bound Oskar and his prisoners together, thought it was reasonable for a factory owner to open the gate and let the people be taken. But the worst arrogance was that the letter did not define ‘relocation’. Governor General Frank was more honest than that and had made a notorious speech a little earlier in the year. “When we ultimately win the war, then, as far as I’m concerned, Poles, Ukrainians and all that rabble idling about here can be made into mincemeat, into anything you like.” Frank had the courage to put an accurate name to the process. In Berlin, they wrote ‘relocation’ and believed themselves excused.

  Amon knew what ‘relocation’ meant and, during Oskar’s next visit to Plaszów, told him freely. All Plaszów men would be sent to Gröss-Rosen. The women would go to Auschwitz. Gröss-Rosen was a vast quarry camp in Lower Silesia. The German Earth & Stone Works, an SS enterprise with branches throughout Poland, Germany, and the conquered territories, consumed the prisoners of Gröss-Rosen. The processes at Auschwitz were, of course, more direct and modern.

  When the news of the abolition of Emalia reached the factory floor and ran through the barracks, some Schindler people thought it was the end of all sanctuary. The Perlmans, whose daughter had come out of Aryan cover to plead for them, packed their blankets and talked philosophically to their bunk neighbours. Emalia has given us a year’s rest, a year’s soup, a year’s sanity. Perhaps it might be enough. But they expected to die now. It was apparent from their voices.

  Rabbi Levartov was resigned too. He was going back to unsettled business with Amon. Edith Liebgold, who’d been recruited by Bankier for the nightshift in the first days of the ghetto, noticed that although Oskar spent hours talking solemnly with his Jewish supervisors, he did not come up to people and make dizzying promises. Perhaps he was as baffled and diminished by these orders from Berlin as anyone else. So he wasn’t quite the prophet he’d been the night she’d first come here more than three years ago.

  Just the same, at the end of summer, as his prisoners packed their bundles and were marched back to Plaszów, there was a rumour among them that Oskar had spoken of buying them back. He had said it to Klein, he had said it to Bankier. You could almost hear him saying it, that level certainty, the paternal rumble of the throat. But as you went up Jerozolimska Street, past the Administration Block, staring in newcomer’s disbelief at the hauling gangs from the quarry, the memory of Oskar’s conviction and promises was very nearly just another burden.

  The Horowitz family were back in Plaszów. Even though their father, Dolek, had last year manoeuvred them to Emalia, here they were back. The six-year-old boy Richard, the mother Regina. Niusia, eleven now, was again sewing bristles on to brush paddles and watching, from the high windows, the trucks roll up to Chujowa Górka, and the black cremation smoke rising over the hill. As Plaszów was when she had left it last year, so it continued. It was impossible for her to believe that it would ever end.

  But her father believed that Oskar would make a list of people and extricate them. Oskar’s list, in the mind of some, was already more than a mere tabulation. It was a List. It was a sweet chariot which might swing low.

  Oskar raised the idea of taking Jews away from Cracow with him one night at Amon’s villa. It was a still night at the end of summer. Amon seemed pleased to see him. Because of Amon’s health – both Doctors Blancke and Gross warning him that if he didn’t cut his eating and drinking he would die – there had not been so many visitors to the villa of late.

  They sat together, drinking at Amon’s new rate of moderation. Oskar sprang the news on him. He wanted to move his factory to Czechoslovakia. He wanted to take his skilled workers with him. He might need other skills from among the Plaszów workers too. He would seek the help of the Evacuation Board in finding an appropriate site, somewhere down in Moravia, and of the Ostbahn in making the shift south-west from Cracow. He let Amon know that he’d be very grateful for any support. The mention of gratitude always excited Amon. Yes, he said, if Oskar could get all
the cooperation he needed from the boards involved, Amon would then allow a list of people to be drawn up.

  When that was settled, Amon wanted a game of cards. He liked blackjack, a version of the French vingt-et-un. It was a hard game for junior officers to fake losing without being obvious. It did not permit of too much sycophancy. It was therefore true sport, and Amon preferred it. Besides, Oskar wasn’t interested in losing this evening. He would be paying enough to Amon for that list.

  The commandant began by betting modestly, in hundred-zloty bills, as if his doctors had advised moderation in this as well. He kept busting, however, and when the beginning stake had been raised to five hundred zloty, Oskar got a ‘natural’, an ace and a ten, which meant that Amon had to pay him double the stake.

  Amon was disconsolate about that but not too peevish. He called for Helen Hirsch to bring coffee. She came in, a parody of a gentleman’s servant, still in black, crisply dressed, but her right eye blind with swelling. She was so small that Amon would need to stoop to beat her up. The girl knew Oskar now but did not look at him. Nearly a year past, he had promised to get her out. Whenever he came to the villa he managed to slip down the corridor to the kitchen and ask her how she was. It meant something, but it had not touched the substance of her life. A few weeks back, for example, when the soup hadn’t been the correct temperature – Amon was pernickety about soup, fly specks in the corridor, fleas on dogs – the commandant had called for Ivan and Petr and told them to take her to the birch tree in the garden and shoot her. He’d watched from the French windows as she walked in front of Petr’s Mauser and pleaded under her breath with the young Ukrainian. “Petr, who’s this you’re going to shoot? It’s Helen. Helen who gives you cakes. You couldn’t shoot Helen, could you?” And Petr answering in the same manner, through clenched mouth, “I know, Helen. I don’t want to. But if I don’t, he’ll kill me.” She’d bent her head towards the spotted birch bark. Having often asked Amon why he wouldn’t kill her, she wanted to die simply, to hurt him by her willing acceptance. But it wasn’t possible. She was trembling so violently that he could have seen it. Her legs were shaking. And then she’d heard Amon call from the windows. “Bring the bitch back. There’s plenty of time to shoot her. In the meantime, it might still be possible to educate her.”

  Insanely, in between his spates of savagery, there were brief phases in which he tried to play the benign master. He had said to her one morning, “You’re really a very well trained servant. If after the war you require a reference, I shall be happy to give you one.” She knew it was just talk, a daydream. She turned her deaf ear, the one whose eardrum he had perforated with a blow. Sooner or later, she knew, she would die of his customary fury.

  In a life like hers, a smile from visitors was only a momentary comfort. Tonight she placed the enormous silver pot of coffee beside the Herr Commandant – he still drank it by the bucket in cups laden with sugar – made her obeisance and left.

  Within an hour, when Amon was three thousand seven hundred zloty in debt to Oskar and complaining sourly about his luck, Oskar suggested a variation on the betting. He would need a maid in Moravia, he said, when he moved to Czechoslovakia. There you couldn’t get them as intelligent and well trained as Helen Hirsch. They were all country girls. Oskar suggested therefore that he and Amon play one hand, double or quits. If Amon won, Oskar would pay him seven thousand four hundred zloty. If he hit a ‘natural’, it would be fourteen thousand eight hundred zloty. But if I win, said Oskar, then you give me Helen Hirsch for my list.

  Amon wanted to think about that. Come on, said Oskar, she’s going to Auschwitz anyhow. But there was an attachment there. Amon was so used to Helen that he couldn’t automatically wager her away. When he’d thought of an end for her, it had probably always been that he would finish her by his own hand, with personal passion. If he played cards for her and lost, he would be under pressure, as a Viennese sportsman, to surrender the pleasure of intimate murder.

  Much earlier in Plaszów’s history, Schindler had asked for Helen to be assigned to Emalia. But Amon had refused. Just a year ago it had seemed that Plaszów would exist for decades, and that the commandant and his maid would grow old together, at least until some perceived fault in Helen brought about the abrupt end of the connection. This time a year ago, no one would have believed that the relationship would be resolved because the Russians were outside Lwów. As for Oskar’s part in this proposal, he had made it lightly. He did not seem to see, in his offer to Amon, any parallel with God and Satan playing cards for human souls. He did not ask himself by what right he made a bid for the girl. If he lost, his chance of extracting her some other way was slim. But all chances were slim that year. Even his own.

  Oskar got up and bustled around the room, looking for stationery with an official letterhead on it. He wrote out the statement for Amon to sign should he lose. I authorise that the name of prisoner Helen Hirsch should be added to any list of skilled workers relocated with Herr Oskar Schindler’s DEF Works.

  Amon was dealer and gave Oskar an eight and a five. Oskar asked to be dealt more. He received a five and an ace. It would have to do. Then Amon dealt to himself. A four came up, and then a king. God in heaven, said Amon. He was a gentleman cusser, he seemed to be too fastidious to use obscenities. I’m busted. I’m out. He laughed a little but was not really amused. My first cards, he explained, were a three and a five. With a four I should have had a good chance. Then I got this damn king.

  In the end, he signed the piece of paper. Oskar picked up all the chits he’d won that evening from Amon and returned them. Just look after the girl for me, he said, till it’s time for us all to leave.

  Out in her kitchen, Helen Hirsch did not know she’d been saved over cards.

  Probably because Oskar reported his evening with Amon to Stern, rumours of Oskar’s plan were heard in the Administration Block and even in the workshops. There was a Schindler list. It was worth everything to be on it.

  THIRTY-ONE

  At some point in any discussion about Schindler, the surviving friends of the Herr Direktor will blink and shake their heads and begin the almost mathematical business of finding the sum of his motives. For one of the most common sentiments of Schindler Jews is still, “I don’t know why he did it.” It can be said for a start that Oskar was a gambler, was a sentimentalist who loved the transparency, the simplicity of doing good; that Oskar was by temperament an anarchist who loved to ridicule the system, and that beneath the hearty sensuality lay a capacity to be outraged by human savagery, to react to it and not be overwhelmed. But none of this, jotted down, added up, explains the doggedness with which, in the autumn of 1944, he prepared a final haven for the graduates of Emalia.

  And not only for them. In early September he drove to Podgórze and visited Madritsch, who at that point employed more than three thousand prisoners in his uniform factory. This factory would now be disbanded. Madritsch would get his sewing machines back, and his workers would vanish. If we made a combined approach, said Oskar, we could get more than four thousand out. Yours and mine. We could relocate them in something like safety. Down in quiet Moravia.

  Madritsch would always and justly be revered by his surviving prisoners. The bread and chickens smuggled into his factory were paid for from his pocket and at continuous risk. He would have been considered a more stable man than Oskar. Not as flamboyant and not as given to obsession. He had not suffered arrest. But he had been much more humane than was safe and, without wit and energy, would have ended in Auschwitz.

  Now Oskar presented to him a vision of a Madritsch-Schindler camp somewhere in the High Jeseniks; some smoky, safe little industrial hamlet.

  Madritsch was attracted by the idea but did not rush to say yes. He could tell that though the war was lost, the SS system had become more instead of less implacable. He was correct in believing that the prisoners of Plaszów would – in coming months – be consumed in death camps to the west. For if Oskar was stubborn and possessed, so were the SS
Main Office and their prize field operatives, the commandants of the concentration camps.

  He did not say no, however. He needed time to think about it. Though he couldn’t say it to Oskar, it is likely he was afraid of sharing factory premises with a rash, demonic fellow like Herr Schindler.

  Without any clear word from Madritsch, Oskar took to the road. He went to Berlin and bought dinner for Colonel Erich Lange. I can go completely over to the manufacture of shells, Oskar told Lange. I can transfer my heavy machinery.

  Lange was crucial. He could guarantee contracts, he could write the hearty recommendations Oskar needed for the Evacuation Board and the German officials in Moravia. Later, Oskar would say of this shadowy staff officer that he had given consistent help. Lange was still in that state of exalted desperation and moral disgust characteristic of many who had worked inside the system but not always for it. We can do it, said Lange, but it will take some money. Not for me. For others.

  Through Lange, Oskar talked with an officer of the Evacuation Board at OKH in the Bendlerstrasse. It was likely, said this officer, that the evacuation would be approved in principle. But there was a major obstacle. The Governor-cum-Gauleiter of Moravia, ruling from a castle at Liberec, had followed a policy of keeping Jewish labour camps out of his province. Neither the SS nor the Armaments Inspectorate had so far persuaded him to change his attitude. A good man to discuss this impasse with, said the officer, would be a middle-aged Wehrmacht engineer down in the Troppau office of the Armaments Inspectorate, a man named Sussmuth. Oskar could talk to Sussmuth too about what relocation sites were available in Moravia. Meanwhile, Herr Schindler could count on the support of the Main Evacuation Board. But you can understand that in view of the pressure they are under, and the inroads the war has made on their personal comforts, they are more likely to give a quick answer if you could be considerate to them in some way. We poor city fellows are short of ham, cigars, drink, cloth, coffee, that sort of thing.