Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Schindler’s Legacy: True Stories of the List Survivors, by Elinor J. Brecher. 1994. Penguin Books, NY

Schindler’s Tales: Very Questionable Altruism in Saving Jews. Paid Rescue of Jews

This book features Schindler’s tales and contains many interviews with the Schindlerjuden. Author Brecher, not to feel left out, also throws in some vicious Polonophobic jibes. (p. xxi). These fit perfectly with the Goodbye Jews! lie in the movie. I focus on items of lasting importance, emphasizing the suspicion that the inordinate and often uncritical publicity given to Oskar Schindler stems from a desire to make the Germans look less bad.

OSKAR SCHINDLER AND THE 1939 “POLISH AGGRESSION” GERMAN PROVOCATION

Brecher comments, “He (Schindler) applied for Nazi Party membership on February 10, 1939. By then, he was an agent of the German Abwehr, the intelligence. In fact, he had been jailed in 1938 as a spy by the Czechs (he was released when Germany annexed the Sudetenland). Oskar Schindler provided Polish Army uniforms to the German provocateurs who attacked a German border radio station the night before the invasion.” (pp. xxvii–xxviii). This propaganda stunt blamed Poland for starting WWII.

Note that Schindler was a spy. To get the job of being a spy, one has to be good at deceiving others. This shows up in Schindler’s later conduct, in more ways than one.

SCHINDLER’S TALES: SCHINDLER THE JEW-SAVING ALTRUIST? NOT SO FAST. LET’S LOOK DEEPER

Interestingly, some of Schindler’s Jews themselves question Schindler’s pro-Jewish altruism, though of course you won’t learn this when you see the adulatory movie. Brecher writes, “All in all, the composition of the list [Schindler’s List] is as much of a puzzle as Oskar Schindler’s motives, a topic of endless debate among the Schindlerjuden. Was he an angel masquerading as an opportunist? An opportunist masquerading as an angel? Did he intend to save eleven hundred Jews, or was their survival simply the result of his self-serving game plan? Did he build the Emalia subcamp to protect Jews or to keep Amon Goth from interfering with his lucrative black marketeering?…Clearly, Oskar Schindler was a sybarite, a sexually voracious, thrill-seeking dandy.” (pp. xxxi-xxxii. Emphasis added).

PANDERING TO JEWS? SCHINDLER SOUGHT TO EARN POSTWAR JEWISH GOODWILL

The author suggests another ulterior motive, “According to Steinhouse, the Schindlers ‘never spent a single night’ in their comfortable villa at Brinnlitz, sleeping instead in a small room at the factory, because Oskar understood how deeply the Jews feared late-night visits by the SS. It’s hard to say what was in that sort of thing for him, except the creation of goodwill, which in itself was a valuable commodity. Were his humane actions really planned to ensure that the grateful Jews would protect him after Germany lost and support him for the rest of his life? Some people think so.” (p. xxxiv). More fundamentally, was Schindler a clever con man?

SCHINDLER’S TALES: OTHER NON-ALTRUISTIC JEW-SAVING MOTIVES

Schindler’s altruistic motives can be questioned on other grounds. For instance, it was common for German businessmen to try to keep their Jewish forced laborers alive, not out of love for these Jews, but in order to profit from them. Himmler noticed and cracked down on it. See:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2022/07/03/schindler-profit-jewish-forced-laborers-holocaust-survivor-testimony-unreliable-details-jewish-nazi-collaboration-browning/

More important, Schindler dreaded his Jews killed, because his shop would close, he would become superfluous, and would be sent to the dreaded Russian front:

https://www.jewsandpolesdatabase.org/2019/11/04/schindlers-list-fear-of-russian-front-crowe/

SCHINDLER’S TALES: JEWS PAY TO BE ON THE LIST. NOT ALL JEWS RESCUED. SCHINDLER MAKES EXCUSES

Brecher makes these sobering comments, “It is commonly believed that Schindler had far less to do with compiling the list than Marcel Goldberg, the greedy Jewish policeman…Most people who saw the movie will recall the scene in which Oskar and his faithful accountant, Itzhak Stern (played by Ben Kingsley), laboriously construct the list from their hearts and mind. In reality, it was Marcel Goldberg who controlled the list, not Stern or even Schindler. According to many survivors, Goldberg demanded payment directly from those who wanted to get on the list. What’s definite is that seven hundred Emalia workers were sent to death camps. Some survived; others didn’t. There’s no small amount of bitterness among the former group and among the surviving relatives of the latter. After the war, some confronted Schindler, demanding to know why they had been left behind. He said he couldn’t stand over Goldberg’s shoulder keeping track all the time.” (pp. xxxiv-xxxv. Emphasis added). What a lame excuse! Was Schindler in charge of his shop, and responsible for it, or was he not? Looks like Schindler is not quite the Jew-lover that he is made out to be.

A REFLECTION

It is fascinating to see how cynical Jews are when it comes to the Polish rescuers of Jews. At the same time Jews, desperately wishing for a “good German”, are so uncritical when it comes to Schindler’s motives. Is this from an ingrained combination of Jewish Germanophilia and Jewish Polonophobia? Or is it from hyping the Holocaust, in the public imagination, regardless of the facts?