One of these Inspectorate men had raised the problem that Oskar’s armament machines had come to him by way of the procurement section of the Berlin Inspectorate, and under approval from its licensing section, specifically for use in Poland. Neither of these sections had been notified of the proposed move to Moravia. They would need to be. It could be a month before they gave their authorization. Oskar did not have a month. Płaszów would be empty by the end of October; everyone would be in Gróss-Rosen or Auschwitz. In the end, the problem was cleared away by the accustomed gifts.
As well as such preoccupations, Oskar was concerned about the SS investigators who had arrested Amon. He half-expected to be arrested or—which was the same thing—heavily interrogated about his relationship with the former Commandant. He was wise to anticipate it, for one of the explanations Amon had offered for the 80,000 RM. the SS had found among his belongings was “Oskar Schindler gave it to me so I’d go easy on the Jews.” Oskar therefore had to keep in contact with friends of his at Pomorska Street who might be able to tell him the direction Bureau V’s investigation of Amon was taking. Finally, since his camp at Brinnlitz would be under the ultimate supervision of KL Gróss-Rosen, he was already dealing with the Commandant of Gróss-Rosen, Sturmbannführer Hassebroeck. Under Hassebroeck’s management, 100,000 would die in the Gróss-Rosen system, but when Oskar conferred with him on the telephone and drove across into Lower Silesia to meet him, he seemed the least of all Oskar’s worries. Schindler was used by now to meeting charming killers and noticed that Hassebroeck even seemed grateful to him for extending the Gróss-Rosen empire into Moravia. For Hassebroeck did think in terms of empire. He controlled one hundred and three subcamps. (brinnlitz would be one hundred and four and—with its more than 1,000 inmates and its sophisticated industry—a major addition.) Seventy-eight of Hassebroeck’s camps were located in Poland, sixteen in Czechoslovakia, ten in the Reich. It was much bigger cheese than anything Amon had managed.
With so much sweetening, cajoling, and form-filling to occupy him in the week Płaszów was wound down, Oskar could not have found the time to monitor Goldberg, even if he had had the power. In any case, the account the prisoners give of the camp in its last day and night is one of milling and chaos, Goldberg—Lord of the Lists—at its center, still holding out for offers.
Dr. Idek Schindel, for example, approached Goldberg to get himself and his two young brothers into Brinnlitz. Goldberg would not give an answer, and Schindel would not find out until the evening of October 15, when the male prisoners were marshaled for the cattle cars, that he and his brothers were not listed for the Schindler camp. They joined the line of Schindler people anyway. It is a scene from a cautionary engraving of Judgment Day—the ones without the right mark attempting to creep onto the line of the justified and being spotted by an angel of retribution, in this case Oberscharführer M’uller, who came up to the doctor with his whip and slapped him, left cheek, right cheek, left and right again with the leather butt, while asking amusedly, “Why would you want to get on that line?”
Schindel would be made to stay on with the small party involved in liquidating Płaszów and would then travel with a carload of sick women to Auschwitz. They would be placed in a hut in some corner of Birkenau and left to die. Yet most of them, overlooked by camp officials and exempt from the usual regimen of the place, would live. Schindel himself would be sent to Flossenburg and then—with his brothers—on a death march. He would survive by a layer of skin, but the youngest Schindel boy would be shot on the march on the next-to-last day of the war. That is an image of the way the Schindler list, without any malice on Oskar’s side, with adequate malice on Goldberg’s, still tantalizes survivors, and tantalized them in those desperate October days.
Everyone has a story about the list. Henry Rosner lined up with the Schindler people, but an NCO spotted his violin and, knowing that Amon would require music should he be released from prison, sent Rosner back. Rosner then hid his violin under his coat, against his side, tucking the node of the sound post under his armpit. He lined up again and was let through to the Schindler cars. Rosner had been one of those to whom Oskar had made promises, and so had always been on the list. It was the same with the Jereths: old Mr. Jereth of the box factory and Mrs. Chaja Jereth, described in the list inexactly and hopefully as a Metallarbeiterin—a metalworker. The Perlmans were also on as old Emalia hands, and the Levartovs as well. In fact, in spite of Goldberg, Oskar got for the most part the people he had asked for, though there may have been some surprises among them. A man as worldly as Oskar could not have been amazed to find Goldberg himself among the inhabitants of Brinnlitz.
But there were more welcome additions than that. Poldek Pfefferberg, for example, accidentally overlooked and rejected by Goldberg for lack of diamonds, let it be known that he wanted to buy vodka—he could pay in clothing or bread. When he’d acquired the bottle, he got permission to take it down to the orderly building in Jerozolimska where Schreiber was on duty. He gave Schreiber the bottle and pleaded with him to force Goldberg to include Mila and himself. “Schindler,” he said, “would have written us down if he’d remembered.” Poldek had no doubt that he was negotiating for his life. “Yes,” Schreiber agreed. “The two of you must get on it.” It is a human puzzle why men like Schreiber didn’t in such moments ask themselves, If this man and his wife were worth saving, why weren’t the rest?
The Pfefferbergs would find themselves on the Schindler line when the time came. And so, to their surprise, would Helen Hirsch and the younger sister whose survival had always been Helen’s own obsession.
The men of the Schindler list entrained at the Płaszów siding on a Sunday, October 15. It would be another full week before the women left. Though the 800 were kept separate during the loading of the train and were pushed into freight cars kept exclusively for Schindler personnel, they were coupled to cars containing 1,300 other prisoners all bound for Gróss-Rosen. It seems that some half-expected to have to pass through Gróss-Rosen on their way to Schindler’s camp; but many others believed that the journey would be direct. They were prepared to endure a slow trip to Moravia—they accepted that they would be made to spend time sitting in the cars at junctions and on sidings. They might wait half a day at a time for traffic with higher priority to pass. The first snow had fallen in the last week, and it would be cold. Each prisoner had been issued only 300 gm. of bread to last the journey, and each car had been provided with a single water bucket. For their natural functions, the travelers would have to use a corner of the floor, or if packed too tightly, urinate and defecate where they stood. But in the end, despite all their griefs they would tumble out at a Schindler establishment.
The 300 women of the list would enter the cars the following Sunday in the same sanguine state of mind.
Other prisoners noticed that Goldberg traveled as lightly as any of them. He must have had contacts outside Płaszów to hold his diamonds for him. Those who still hoped to influence him on behalf of an uncle, a brother, a sister allowed him enough space to sit in comfort. The others squatted, their knees pushed into their chins. Dolek Horowitz held six-year-old Richard in his arms. Henry Rosner made a nest of clothing on the floor for nine-year-old Olek.
It took three days. Sometimes, at sidings, their breath froze on the walls. Air was always scarce, but when you got a mouthful it was icy and fetid. The train halted at last on the dusk of a comfortless autumn day. The doors were unlocked, and passengers were expected to alight as quickly as businessmen with appointments to keep. SS guards ran among them shouting directions and blaming them for smelling. “Take everything off!” the NCO’S were roaring. “Everything for disinfection!” They piled their clothing and marched naked into the camp. By six in the evening they stood in naked lines on the Appellplatz of this bitter destination. Snow stood in the surrounding woods; the surface of the parade ground was iced. It was not a Schindler camp. It was Gróss-Rosen. Those who had paid Goldberg glared at him, threatening murder, while SS men in overcoats walked along the lines, lashing the buttocks of those who openly shivered.