The Other Schindlers (28 page)
Read The Other Schindlers Online
Authors: Agnes Grunwald-Spier
Margarita’s memoir is quite terrible to read as it narrates the way she hardened herself to the treatment which was so alien to her previous experience. She writes of auntie’s nastiness to her own children which alternated with demonstrations of affection, particularly to Bozenka, who was obviously her favourite. Both in the memoir and in subsequent correspondence she stresses her shock:
When she got into one of her fits, she was liable to hand it out to them as well, but they were used to her and had learned how to protect themselves. I had never before experienced anybody talking or behaving in such a manner and my constant state of shock was only slowly turning into numbness, my being encased in a hard shell.
171
Although Pani Borciñska treated her with utter contempt, she never accused her of stealing, and when her little hoard of money disappeared she asked Margarita who had taken it. She knew it was Bogdan, but before she could respond Pani had confronted him:
he wanted to know why she should suspect him and not the Jewish bitch. She began to beat him but he managed to escape and run out into the landing. Convinced that I had told on him, he screamed at the top of his voice, as he started running down the stairs, ‘Yes, believe a slandering Yid! The f***ing good for nothing kike is now more valuable to you than your own flesh and blood!!’ Fortunately nobody was around to hear this and Auntie managed to run after him and drag him back into the apartment. This time he really got it from her.
172
Actually, auntie kept her until Russia liberated Poland and her father came for her:
She had been keeping me now for a long time without any money for me coming in and she was willing to continue keeping me on the chance that my parents or some other relatives had survived and would handsomely remunerate her for all the trouble and expense I caused her. Otherwise, she had a plan to sell me to some peasants.
173
Pani was lucky and so was Margarita, who was planning how to escape if she was sold. When Margarita’s father turned up to collect her in the spring of 1945 he settled the debt. Margarita recalls that he went back to his office and borrowed from whoever he could, and then returned a few hours later ‘with the cash and I left with him’.
174
Margarita was thoroughly traumatised by her whole experience, and even though her parents survived to take her to America in December 1947, her life has been scarred by these events:
Counselling was not known in those days. My parents thought it was enough to have me back with them and while they were aware (at least to some extent) of what I went through during the time with Mrs Borciñska they had no clue to what extent I was damaged. Years of therapy after I grew up did not touch upon that experience and only recently, a new therapeutic approach helped me relive and accept those emotions which were buried and denied all the years and which, among other causes, prevented me from having any fulfilment in life – till now; and this therapy was what enabled me to write about those times.
175
A final case of someone who paid for safety was Lea Goodman’s parents, who voluntarily entered the Kostrze camp near Krakow in September 1942. Lea had been born in 1935 in Krakow and was an only child. In 1941 the family of three moved to Dzialoszyce, her mother’s hometown. However, on the eve of the mass deportation of Jews they travelled to Kostrze. Lea was 7 at this time.
The camp’s commandant was a German engineer called Richard Strauch whom Lea described as an opportunist like Schindler. She believes her parents may have paid to stay. The camp had Jewish guards and there were Jewish
secretaries
in his office in the town. Lea remembers visiting the office. After they had been there a short time, Richard Strauch told Lea’s parents that the
authorities
had learned there were children in the camp and he could not keep them anymore. He found places for them all in an orphanage in the Ghetto:
We were about twenty children in a horse-drawn cart. We were all quite happy; it seemed as we were going on an excursion. My father followed the cart and after some kilometres, in a suburb of Krakow, my father took me off and said I was going
to say goodbye to friends, and rejoin the children in the Ghetto, which of course I did not. If I had I would probably not be alive.
176
Lea was placed with a Christian family, Mr and Mrs Soltisova, who were
business
friends of her father, and she believes her survival was due to being with them. Lea’s father was arrested by the Nazis at the end of 1942 when he left his work party to go into a shop which was forbidden to Jews. He did not survive the war.
Her mother then joined Lea and they moved from place to place. Eventually they heard that travel to Hungary from Poland through Slovakia was possible with the help of the Underground. Lea’s memories of their journey from Krakow are clear; as there was snow on the ground she thought it was February or March. In the small group of six or eight was a girl strapped to a relative who carried her – she had lost the use of her legs from being hidden in a confined space. The guide disappeared and they eventually found their way back to Krakow.
177
Left with nowhere to go, they turned up at her mother’s old dressmaker who took them in. She kept them for free – perhaps out of loyalty. There was also a Christian teacher who her mother used to meet in the street, who she believes gave her money and addresses of places to stay. They stayed in three different places and had to pay ‘danger money’ to be lodged. However, Lea and her mother made another attempt to reach Slovakia – and survived – and she remembers the drama of crossing the border at night. She commented: ‘The Slovaks, who at that time were still an axis power of the Germans, behaved with humanity towards illegal refugees and that could not be said most of the time of the neutral Swiss, who in similar situations like ours sent people back to occupied France.’
178
Their real good fortune was that they started their journey late in the war, March 1944, and never reached Hungary where they might have joined the
thousands
sent to their deaths in Auschwitz. As Lea has written: ‘We stayed in Slovakia, where we were liberated by the glorious Russian army.’
179
Lea always wondered how the guides and the forays across the borders were organised. She eventually read Robert Rozett’s article which told her:
From February 1943 until March 1944 an extraordinary and, in many ways, unique rescue operation took place. Zionist youth-movement members, veteran Zionist and Orthodox anti-Zionists in Slovakia and Hungary, backed by representatives of the Jewish Agency from Palestine in Turkey and aided by gentile couriers (guides), strove in loose federation to extricate Jews from Nazi-occupied Poland. Those who were smuggled out of Poland were brought to Hungary, generally by way of Slovakia, with the hope of eventually bringing them to Palestine.
180
They arrived in the town of Kezmarok, where they stayed until the end of the war. Her mother found work as a mother’s help, passing as a Polish Christian. After the liberation they went to Prague and at Easter 1946 they went to France. Her mother remarried and had another daughter in 1948. Lea married Dennis Goodman in 1954. He had been sent to school in England in 1936 from Germany aged 13. His parents had moved to Holland and did not survive. Lea has lived in London since the age of 18 and is a sculptor. Dennis died in 2007 aged 84.
Lea concluded that the fact she and her mother survived in Krakow, on the Aryan side, was very unusual. Very few Jews managed to do so in a town which was the headquarters of the Germans in Poland.
181
1
. Michelle Quinn, ‘The Artists’ Schindler’ in
San Jose Mercury News
, G-1, 29 March 1999, p. 10.
2
. Grace Bradberry, ‘Surrey’s own Oskar Schindler’ in
The Times
, 1 March 1999, p. 15.
3
. Teresa Watanabe, ‘Japan’s Schindler’ in
The Los Angeles Times
, 1994.
4
.
Chinese People’s Daily
, 10 September 2001.
5
. Dominic Kennedy, ‘British Schindler saved 1,000 Jews from Nazis’ in
The Times
, 5 April 2002, p. 6.
6
. Dr Bal-Kaduri, ‘1,100 Jews Rescued by a German’ in
Yad Vashem Bulletin
, December 1957, No 2, pp. 12–3.
7
. Linley Boniface, ‘Saved from Death by Schindler’s List’ in
Hampstead & Highgate Express
, 5 May 1995, p. 50.
8
. Judith Simons, obituary for Victor Dortheimer 1918–2000,
Jewish Chronicle
, 26 May 2000.
9
. Ron Fisher,
A Schindler Survivor – The Story of Victor Dortheimer
, Carlton TV, 1995.
10
. Svitavy in Czech, Zwittau in German.
11
. Herbert Steinhouse, ‘The Man Who Saved a Thousand Lives’, 1949, in
Oskar Schindler and His List
(Forest Dale, Vermont: Eriksson, 1995), ed. Thomas Fensch, p. 13.
12
. Ibid., p. 35.
13
. Luitgard N. Wundheiler, ‘Oskar Schindler’s Moral Development During the Holocaust’ in
Humboldt Journal of Social Relations
, Vol. 13, Nos 1 & 2, 1985–86, pp. 335–56, 340.
14
. Eric Silver,
The Book of the Just: The silent heroes who saved Jews from Hitler
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1992), pp. 147–8.
15
. Wundheiler, ‘Oskar Schindler’s Moral Development During the Holocaust’, p. 333.
16
. Ibid., pp. 340–1.
17
. Dina Rabinovitch, ‘Schindler’s Wife’ in
Guardian Weekend
, 5 February 1994.
18
. Robin O’Neil, ‘Schindler – An Unlikely Hero – the Man from Svitavy’, Introduction, p. ix, unpublished MA dissertation on Schindler, 1996, University College London, Dept for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. O’Neil cites his interview with Dr Moshe Bejski in Tel Aviv, 1995.
19
. Emilie Schindler,
Where Light and Shadow Meet: A Memoir
(New York: Norton, 1996), p. 46.
20
. Emilie Schindler’s obituary,
The Independent
, 7 October 2001.
21
. Schindler,
Where Light and Shadow Meet
, p. 58.
22
. Ibid., p. ix.
23
. Ibid.
24
. Ibid., p. 162.
25
. Allan Hall, ‘Widow fights to retrieve Schindler’s original list’ in
The Times
, 27 April 2001.
26
. Dina Rabinovitch, ‘Schindler’s Wife’ in
Guardian Weekly
, 5 February 1994.
27
. Steinhouse, ‘The Man Who Saved a Thousand Lives’, pp. 17–8.
28
. Rachel Fixsen, ‘Spielberg’s Hero Died Alone and Forgotten’, Reuters News Service, 10 February 1994 in
Oskar Schindler and his List
, pp. 250–1.
29
. Testimony of Yitzhak Stern, May 1962, www1.yadvashem.org/righteous_new/germany/germany_shindler_testimony_1print.html.
30
. Martin Gilbert, The Boys (London: 1996), Glossary, p. 482.
31
. Dr Moshe Bejski, notes of telephone conversation with author in Jerusalem, 3 January 2004.
32
. Bradberry, ‘Surrey’s own Oskar Schindler’, 1 March 1999.
33
. Henk Huffener, telephone conversation with the author, 1 July 2002.
34
. Huffener, unpublished memoir written for the author, dated 10–11 May 1999.
35
. Bradberry, ‘Surrey’s own Oskar Schindler’, 1 March 1999.
36
. Huffener, letter to the author, 2 July 2002.
37
. Brenda Bailey,
A Quaker Couple in Nazi Germany
(York: William Sessions, 1994), p. 36.
38
. Henk Huffener, letter to the author, 21 October 2002.
39
. Ibid.
40
. Ibid., 29 December 2002.
41
. Speech by the Ambassador of Israel on presenting Henk Huffener the award of Righteous Among the Nations at the Israeli Embassy, London, 3 February 1999.
42
. Bradberry, ‘Surrey’s own Oskar Schindler’, 1 March 1999.
43
. Carol Ann Lee,
The Hidden Life of Otto Frank
(London: Viking, 2002), p. 15; and Naomi Shepherd,
Wilfrid Israel: Germany’s Secret Ambassador
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984), p. 26.
44
. Erna Paris,
Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History
(London: Bloomsbury, 2001), p. 72.
45
. Theo Richmond, ‘How German Can you Get?’ in
The Sunday Times Culture
magazine, 9 March 2003.
46
. Victoria J. Barnett,
Bystanders: Conscience and Complicity During the Holocaust
(Westport: Greenwood Press, 1999), p. 99.
47
. Else Pintus, ‘The Diary of Else Pintus: The Story of a Holocaust Survivor, 1947’, unpublished diary translated by Doris Stiefel (
née
Pintus), June 1998, and sent to the author, p. 33.
48
. Barbara Lovenheim,
Survival in the Shadows: Seven Hidden Jews in Hitler’s Berlin
(London: Peter Owen, 2002), pp. 24–6. Photo and citation between pp. 124–5.
49
. Jew Count, http://en.allexperts.com/e/j/je/jew_count.htm, accessed 3 January 2010.
50
. Citation from Yad Vashem, sent by e-mail, 16 December 2009.
51
. Huffener, letter to the author, 6 June 1999, p. 14b.
52
. Ibid.
53
. Ibid., 14 April 2000, pp. 3–4.
54
. Ibid., 6 June 1999, p. 14b.
55
. Tanya Harrod, obituary of Maria Sax Ledger,
The Independent
, 11 April 2006.
56
.
Cipher Caput
by Treatment, 1993, www.delerium.co.uk/bands/treatment/delec026.html.
57
. Philip Hardaker, e-mail to the author, 10 January 2010.
58
. Hardaker, telephone conversation with the author, 11 January 2010.
59
. HE Dror Zeigerman, speech honouring Henk Huffener in the Israeli Embassy, 3 February 1999.
60
. Bradberry, ‘Surrey’s own Oskar Schindler’, 1 March 1999.
61
. Claire Keen-Thiryn, e-mail to the author, 23 March 2001.
62
. Keen-Thiryn, interview with the author in Bolton, 21 April 2001, p. 1.
63
. Ibid.
64
. Ibid., p. 2.
65
. John Clinch,
Escape & Evasion Belgium WW2
, www.belgiumww2.info, section 7, accessed 28 December 2009.
66
. Ibid.
67
. Guido Zembsch-Schreve, Pierre
Lalande: Special Agent
(London: Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 1998), p. 297.
68
. Leaflet about exhibition to commemorate fiftieth anniversary of the liberation of Dora, provided by Claire Keen-Thiryn.
69
. Obituary of Guido Zembsch-Schreve, a member of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), in
The Times
, 3 April 2003.
70
. Keen-Thiryn, e-mail to the author, 3 May 2001.
71
. Freddie Knoller, ‘A History of the Dora Camp’ in
Perspectives
, Autumn 2004, p. 35.
72
.
Une base intéressante de 1944 (prisonniers politiques) – Forums Généalogie
– www.genealogie.com/v4/forums/recherches-genealogiques-benelux, accessed 28 December 2009.
73
. Evert Kwaadgras, e-mail to the author, 16 January 2004. Mr Kwaadgras is the archivist, librarian and curator of the Dutch Freemasons’ Grand Lodge of the Netherlands, based in The Hague.
74
. Henri Obstfeld, e-mail to the author, 6 May 2001.
75
. Henri Obstfeld, ‘A Bridge Too Far’ in
Zachor: Child Survivors Speak
(London: Elliott & Thompson, 2005), pp. 89–96 (89–90).
76
. Obstfeld, e-mail to the author, 25 April 2001.
77
. Ibid., 6 May 2001.
78
. Ibid., 1 December 2009.
79
. Ibid., 28 December 2003 (10:34).
80
. Ibid.
81
. Ibid., (18:24).
82
. Ibid., 25 April 2001.
83
. Obstfeld,
Zachor
, p. 95.
84
. Obstfeld, e-mail to the author, 6 May 2001.
85
. Ibid., 16 April 2001.
86
. Lena Berggren, ‘Elof Eriksson (1883–1965): A Case-study of Anti-Semitism in Sweden’,
Patterns of Prejudice
, Vol. 34, No 1, January 2000, pp. 39–48 (46).
87
. Museum of Tolerance, Multimedia Learning Center, http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/text/x07/xr0776.html, accessed 26 December 2003.
88
. Matthew Scanlan, ‘The KGB’s Masonic Files Returned to France’ in
Freemasonry Today
, Issue 18, October 2001.
89
. I am grateful to Evert Kwaadgras for the information provided on Freemasons; e-mail of 16 January 2004.
90
. Evert Kwaadgras, e-mail to the author, 16 January 2004.
91
. Ibid., 12 January 2004.
92
. Ibid., 16 January 2004.
93
. Obstfeld, e-mail to the author, 16 December 2009.
94
. Ibid., 14 September 2002.
95
. Ibid., 1 December 2009.
96
. Marion Schreiber,
Silent Rebels
(London: Atlantic Books, 2003), Appendix, pp. 269–308.
97
. Ian Black, ‘The Heroes of Mechelen’, the
Guardian
, 19 June 2003.
98
. Schreiber,
Silent Rebels
, pp. 242–4.
99
. Hephzibah Anderson, ‘Survivors of heroic raid on train 801’ in
Jewish Chronicle
, 20 June 2003.
100
. Rose-Marie Guilfoyle, e-mail to the author, 3 August 2004. I am grateful to Ms Guilfoyle who interviewed M. Maistriau on my behalf because she is bilingual and he spoke no English. He was apparently very pleased at my interest in his story.
101
. Paul Spiegel, Foreword in Schreiber’s
Silent Rebels
, p. ix. Paul Spiegel was the President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and was himself saved by being hidden as a small boy by a Belgian family. He died on 30 April 2004 aged 68.
102
. Steve Jelbert, e-mail to the author, 24 July 2003.
103
. Steve Jelbert, ‘A great escape’ in
The Times
Play Section, 19 July 2003 (review of
Silent Rebels
).
104
. Jelbert, e-mail to the author, 25 July 2003.
105
. Schreiber,
Silent Rebels
, p. 89.
106
. Ibid., p. 90.
107
. Black, ‘The Heroes of Mechelen’, 19 June 2003.
108
. Schreiber,
Silent Rebels
, p. 4.
109
. Robert McCrum, ‘What ho, Adolf’,
The Observer Review
, 18 November 2001, p. 2.
110
. Spiegel, Foreword in Schreiber’s
Silent Rebels
, p. ix.
111
. Simon Kuper,
Ajax, the Dutch, the War: Football in Europe During the Second World War
(London: Orion, 2003), p. 137.
112
. Hannah Arendt,
Eichmann in Jerusalem
(London: Penguin, 1994), pp. 169–70.
113
. Rose Marie Guilfoyle, e-mails to the author, 6, 7 and 10 September 2004.
114
. Robert Maistriau, meeting with Rose Marie Guilfoyle in Brussels, 2 August 2004.
115
. ‘Belgium bids farewell to resistance hero who saved Jews’, Haaretz, 2 October 2008.
116
. ‘Aryanised’ is the term for the compulsory taking over of Jewish property by non-Jews.
117
. Otto Fleming, notes on Mitzi, 21 May 1997.
118
. Otto Fleming, telephone conversation with the author, 12 March 2001.
119
. Dorothy Fleming, e-mail to the author, 12 December 2009.
120
. Otto Fleming, ‘A Jewish Family in Hietzing’, unpublished memoir, December 2002.
121
. Ibid., pp. 7–8.
122
. Ibid., p. 9.
123
. Dorothy Fleming, e-mail to the author, 26 December 2009 (12:46).
124
. Ibid., (13:01).
125
. Otto Fleming, telephone conversation with the author, 25 May 1997.
126
. The area was part of Germany until 1918, when it became Polish.
