In Memoriam: The Man Who Convinced Oskar Schindler to Save Jews in WWII

Teresa Neumann : Jun 14, 2011
Staff - Jerusalem Post

"It was only the extraordinary circumstances of war and the immense power granted to individual men that revealed the nature of these men to such an impressive and terrifying degree. Fate had placed me between the two of them, and it was like having an angel on one side and a demon on the other." -Mietek Pemper

(Germany) - The Jerusalem Post reports that Mietek Pemper, the German man responsible for typing the famous list for Oskar Schindler containing the names of Jews who could work in the Schindler's munitions plant, died in Augsburg. He was 91.

According to the report, Pemper - who was the personal typist of Nazi commandant Amon Goeth - "secretly read a letter sent to Goeth from Berlin announcing that all factories not producing goods for the Nazi-war effort would be closed down." (Photo: The Jerusalem Post)

Subsequently, Pemper convinced Schindler, a Nazi, to switch his plant's focus from enamel production to anti-tank grenade rifles. Reportedly at great personal risk, he then gave Schindler a typed list of more than 1,000 fellow prisoners who could work in the plant.

The report also notes that Pemper was a consultant for the film Schindler's List, and in a recent memoir he "pondered what the world would have been like if there had been no war or Nazi extermination effort."

"Goeth would probably not have been a mass murderer, nor Schindler a saver of lives," said Pemper. "It was only the extraordinary circumstances of war and the immense power granted to individual men that revealed the nature of these men to such an impressive and terrifying degree. Fate had placed me between the two of them, and it was like having an angel on one side and a demon on the other.”