(March 24, 1920 – June 7, 2011)
Biography
Early life
Pemper was born into a Jewish family in Kraków, Poland near the Vistula river on March 24, 1920.[2] Pemper's immediate family consisted of himself, his parents, Jakub and Regina Pemper, along with his younger brother, Stefan Pemper. In Polish, "Mietek" is short for "Mieczysław", and his family and closest friends referred to him as such. From early childhood, Pemper was bilingual in Polish and German.[3] He studied law at Jagiellonian University and business administration at the Academy of Economics simultaneously.[3] Jewish students were made to sit on separate seats and benches while Pemper was a student at Jagiellonian.[3]Płaszów and Oskar Schindler
Pemper was 19 years old when Nazi Germany invaded Poland in 1939.[1] All Jews in Kraków, including Pemper and his family, were required to wear Star of David yellow badges by the Nazis.[1] Pemper stayed at home as much as possible in protest against the badges, and it was at home that he learned to be a stenographer.[1] He and his family were soon confined to the Kraków Ghetto, and Pemper was appointed by Nazi officials as a clerk for the Judenrat, the Kraków Ghetto's Jewish administration.[3] Pemper also acted as a German-Polish interpreter for the Kraków Ghetto residents and typed up radio broadcasts from the BBC.[3]The Kraków Ghetto had started deportations by the end of 1942, and between March 13 through March 15 it was fully liquidated. Pemper was deported from the ghetto to Płaszów concentration camp.[1] He was assigned as the personal secretary and stenographer to Amon Göth, Płaszów's notorious commandant, due to his previous work at the Kraków Ghetto's Judenrat.[1][2] Pemper's position as Göth's assistant gave him rare access to documents sent to Göth from Nazi authorities.[1] By working in Göth's office, Pemper also became an acquaintance of Oskar Schindler, an ethnic German businessman and industrialist with ties to the black market.[2] At first, Schindler wanted to profit from the German invasion of Poland and ensuing war. Schindler had opened an enamelware factory in Kraków using Jewish labor.[1] Itzhak Stern, an accountant and Pemper's closest friend in Göth's office, persuaded Pemper that Schindler could be trusted.[3]
Pemper typed his first letter to Oskar Schindler in March 1943, without the knowledge that Schindler had sympathies for his Jewish workers.[3] Through his work in the office, Pemper discovered in 1944 that the Nazis intended to close all factories not directly tied to the war effort, including Schindler's enamelware facility.[1] The closures would likely mean that Płaszów's Jewish inmates would be deported to Auschwitz. Pemper personally alerted Schindler to the plans and persuaded him to switch production from enamelware to anti-tank grenades to save Schindler's workers.[1][3] Pemper provided Schindler with as little information as possible, so Schindler could not be implicated in the sharing of classified Nazi secrets if Pemper was caught.[3]
Pemper helped collaborate the famous "Schindler's List" to save as many Jewish workers as possible.[1] Pemper, in collaboration with Schindler along with the help from other inmates in the Płaszów concentration camp, compiled and typed the list of 1,200 Jewish inmates deemed "decisive for the Nazi war effort" – 1,000 of Schindler's workers and 200 additional Jewish inmates.[1][3] Those on the list, including Pemper himself, were transferred to Schindler's new grenade factory located in Bruennlitz, Czechoslovakia, in October 1944.[1] This transfer ended up saving the lives of those who were put on the list. Schindler also included Pemper's father, mother and brother on the list. Pemper's mother Regina didn't make it to the new factory in Bruennlitz, because of her illness; she was left behind in Auschwitz and later liberated when the war had ended. At the end of the war, Oskar Schindler presented a speech to his Jewish factory workers stating: "Don’t thank me for your survival...Thank your valiant Stern and Pemper, who stared death in the face constantly."[3]
Pemper testified against Amon Göth at his September 1946 trial in Kraków, Poland, following the end of the war.[1]
Later life
Pemper moved to the city of Augsburg, Bavaria, in 1958 and became a German citizen.[2][3] He worked as a management consultant and an intercultural activist, specifically focusing on Jewish-Christian relations and reconciliation.[2] He kept some contact with Oskar Schindler until his death in 1974.[1]He served as a consultant for Steven Spielberg's 1993 film, Schindler's List.[1][2] The movie minimized Pemper's role in collaborating with Schindler during the war.[1] Spielberg sought to simplify the film's storyline by creating a composite character, portrayed by actor Ben Kingsley, based on both Mietek Pemper and Itzhak Stern.[3] However, Pemper dismissed his diminished role in the film saying his accomplishment was not the list that was compiled and typed, but "the multifarious acts of resistance that, like tiny stones being placed into a mosaic one by one, had made the whole process possible," according to The Daily Telegraph.[1] Spielberg paid tribute to both Pemper and Stern outside of the film, calling them heroes.[3] Pemper was portrayed by actor Grzegorz Kwas in the film.
Pemper's adopted city of Augsburg awarded him a civic medal in 2003.[2] They further named him as an honorary citizen in 2007.[2]
Mietek Pemper died in Augsburg, Germany, on June 7, 2011, at the age of 91.[2] He never married and left no close survivors.[3] He was buried in Augsburg's Jewish cemetery and municipal flags were lowered to half-staff in his honor.[2] In tribute to Pemper, Augsburg's Mayor Kurt Gribl said, "With Mietek Pemper, the city has lost an important builder of bridges between the Jewish and Christian religions and a contributor to reconciliation."[2]
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