The Other Schindlers (29 page)

Now that we have read the narratives about the rescuers and the people they saved, in this section I would like to compare the rescuers, the wider issues of rescue and also show the relevance of their courage to the world in which we live today.

We have seen that the rescuers came from varied backgrounds. We find that some rescuers, such as Józef Barczynski and Dr Ho, had experienced hardship in their youth. Barczynski’s family had been displaced and he therefore identified with the Jews. Dr Ho had grown up at a time when the Chinese were badly treated, so he too could empathise with persecuted Jews.

The Italian Costagutis, Mitzi and the Stenzels all helped people they knew and felt a loyalty towards, either because of previous relationships or living in close proximity. This can also apply to János Tóth who certainly was consistently good to Jews without even considering his own position. The Costagutis knew the people they helped because they were neighbours in Rome. They were not particularly pro-Jewish and some of those they assisted were early members of the Fascist party, so the rescue was really based on their neighbourly relationship and humanitarianism.

Vali Rácz also had mixed motives: loyalty to Jews because she had worked amongst them for years, but also great compassion for those who needed help. Her daughter described her as brave, humane, generous to a fault and having total self-belief.
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A significant division between the rescuers was that some of them had reacted specifically to the horrors of the Holocaust. Oskar Schindler, Varian Fry and Jaap van Proosdij are three rescuers who fall into this category. Oskar and Varian were older than Jaap, who was only 21, and their earlier lives had not marked them out as people who went out of their way to help others. They performed amazing
deeds for Jews in those desperate times, but altruism was not significant in their lives before or afterwards. Both Oskar and Varian are now dead, but Jaap van Proosdij admitted to me, ‘I don’t know whether I am an humanitarian’,
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saying he was more likely to help individuals or families than a nation of people in crisis. Although Fry has been called the ‘American Schindler’, these two men came to their rescuees from different directions:

Many of the rescuers were known to be helpful to others all their lives. Charles Fawcett continued to help those in crisis, in spite of recurrent bouts of TB, until he was too frail. In the 1956 Hungarian revolution he rescued many Hungarians and later flew to the Belgian Congo and helped 250 Europeans escape. In the 1980s he was in Afghanistan filming Russian crimes against the Afghans. Henk Huffener also gave his time to help people after the war, assisting both Chileans and West Indians in London in the 1970s. John Schoen’s father was always having people turn up at his door wanting work, and Soeur St Cybard continually aided those in difficulties – she was like a social worker in the area. These were people who continually took responsibility for others who needed their help. They gave it willingly and unstintingly all their lives.

Many rescuers regarded their time in the war as the most significant in their lives. Carl Lutz, Varian Fry and Mary Jayne Gold, the wealthy socialite who funded Varian’s work in Marseilles, all agreed on this:

Carl Lutz’s stepdaughter wrote to me: ‘My father always considered his time in Budapest and the rescue of innocent Jews as the most important part of his life.’
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She subsequently told me: ‘It was the main subject he talked about. He wrote lots of letters and reports but never wrote his memoirs.’
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Jaap van Proosdij also said that the period when he was helping the Jews was the time when he felt he was most useful in his life.

Some of the rescuers were not particularly pro-Jewish but their aid was offered as being part of the Resistance or out of loyalty or neighbourliness. The Thiryn family and the Costagutis fell into this group. It has been said that you don’t have to like someone to save them.

Many of the rescued kept close contact with their rescuers after the war. Betty Eppel went to see the Guicherds every year until they died and Suze Brown kept in close touch with the Schoens and visited them every year from America. Even after her death, her widower Arnold and daughters have kept in touch with the Schoens, although the people involved with the rescue are all now dead. Arnold told me how much Suze thought of the family and how she had been so traumatised that she had never spoken to her daughters about her experiences.
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Margaret Kagan kept in touch with Vytautas as much as the Cold War allowed, and her cousin cradled her rescuer as she died years later. Hermann Maas kept in touch with the Rosenzweig children and continued his work through the ICCJ. The ties between these people were strong, not just because of the debt of saving their lives, but often because living together created powerful bonds – as with Betty Eppel, who experienced very strong love and affection from the Guicherds. Else Pintus, who never married and had no children, left her property to the Stenzels who hid her for two and a half years and saved her life. Irena Veisaite is still in touch with her rescuer’s family and regards them as close family.

Some hidden children were traumatised by the need to return to parents they did not remember, as with Miriam Dunner, who remained closer to her foster mother Elizabeth than her own mother; and even after Elizabeth died, she continued to speak to her foster father Jelle every Sunday, until he too died eight months later. The Eppels did not want to go back with the father they hardly knew. When Josie Martin’s parents turned up for her in August 1944: ‘I took one look and I knew I didn’t want to go with them. I even pretended I didn’t know who they were.’
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No one had counselling in those days and people were just expected to get on with their lives and be glad they were one of the ‘lucky’ ones. It appears that Josie’s parents did not stay in touch with Soeur St Cybard, which Josie regrets to this day. Frank Auerbach too regrets not contacting Iris Origo, but he was only 8 at the time and it was
never suggested to him. Manli Ho has not found many of the thousands her father saved.

If we look at the diplomats who saved thousands of people with a signature on pieces of paper, without exception all of them suffered in their subsequent careers – some with considerable financial loss. Dr Ho, Carl Lutz and de Sousa Mendes were all criticised for over-reaching their authority. Both Ho and de Sousa Mendes lost their pensions after decades of loyal service.

It is significant that many relatives I have been in touch with were unaware of much I had discovered. Louis Lacalle, grand-nephew of Soeur St Cybard, had no idea of her activities until I wrote to him. Paul Mower, son of Martha Mower, who was saved with her brother Paul, had little idea of how they had made contact with Hermann Maas. Benedetta Origo only found out about her mother’s rescue of Jewish children after she died. It seems understandable that rescuers would perhaps not brag about their actions, but perhaps the rescued might have told their families more.

Nechama Tec, who attempted to establish the social determinants of
rescuers
, eventually concluded: ‘These rescuers acted in ways that were natural to them’ and she also noted that they came from all strata of society. Zygmunt Bauman juxtaposes Tec’s conclusions with research on the high number of divorces amongst hijack victims, as documented in
Le Monde
. Previously
perfectly
happily married couples apparently found that the experience of being hijacked together revealed aspects of their spouse’s personality that were
unfavourable
, and ‘they saw their partners in a new light’.
Le Monde
concluded that in fact these two sides of the spouse’s personality were Janus-like, but it was merely the experience of being hijacked that had revealed the other, ‘which was always present but invisible’. Bauman makes a connection between this research and Tec’s concluding observation:

Varian Fry was precisely this type of person – a most unlikely rescuer. However, this inability to predict future behaviour also applies to the perpetrators. It is
significant
that in reviewing a new biography of Eichmann it was noted:

Judge Moshe Bejski, who had been saved by Oskar Schindler, wrote in 1974:

In the preceding chapters the stories of rescuers have been examined, some of whom fall into the categories discussed by Dr Bejski. Whilst the rescuers were gathered in a somewhat random fashion (see Introduction), in that they or the person they rescued presented themselves to me, they come from various
countries
and from different strata in society. They also stated different motives for their actions. Table 3 gives their background and demonstrates that rescuers were not confined to any particular background, degree of education, political,
religious
or economic grouping.

We can therefore see that rescuers were motivated both by conditioning from the various influences on them and by an inherent sense of justice. This sense of justice and fair play appears in comments about many of the rescuers such as Jacob Klerk, who looked after Henri Obstfeld, and John Schoen’s family, who saved Suze.

Perhaps the most significant aspect is the surprise most of them express when asked why they did what they did. Many, including the Guicherds and Vytautas
Rinkevicius, said it was normal – anyone would have done it – yet the maths proves them wrong – most people didn’t. If they had, there would have been no Holocaust and I would not have written this book.

Studies of the Holocaust traditionally discuss four categories: perpetrators, bystanders, rescuers and victims. However, Hubert Locke, who describes himself as a black American Christian, has queried these categories as a vast
oversimplification
. To support his view he refers to the economic boycott, expected to last a week, announced on 1 April 1933. In fact, it fizzled out after one day because ordinary Germans refused to participate: