Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... The Road to Rescue: The Untold Story of Schindler's Listby Mietek PEMPER
None Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. This was an amazing book. It allowed the reader to see another side of the Schindler's list story. Highly recommended. ( )This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. The Road to Rescue: The Untold Story of Schlindler's List is a difficult book to put down and hard to pick back up. Pemper's writing has a way of keeping you interested in a terrible time in history. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the Holocaust.This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Mietek Pemper has written an extraordinary account of his life during the second world war in Krakow, Poland. He was part of the story of "Schindler's List", working as a secretary to the labor camp commandant, Amon Goth, and participating in ways large and small to preserve the lives of many of the inmates of the Plaszow concentration camp. His story is meticulously told, without hyperbole or emotion; Pemper here concentrates on factually accounting the events he lived through. This is not an adventure story; Pemper risks his life repeatedly, but recounts the story in such a way that the reader is not constantly aware of the danger of his position as secretary to a notoriously violent Nazi, who would randomly shoot inmates.Pemper also recounts his life before and after the war. He testified in war crimes trials in Poland and served as an interpreter. Later, he settled in Augsburg, Germany. Presently, he speaks about his experiences, often to German schoolchildren. Pemper seems to have survived the unthinkable without bitterness. He closes the book with a chapter on remembering the Holocaust, treating all people as individuals, rather than as members of a good or an evil group and finishes with his personal ethical code which calls for personal responsibility and critical thinking. Altogether an important book and one worth reading. This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. I found the story to be truly fascinating. Even today, it's hard to believe the Holocaust really happened, and I am always interested to read the stories of people who fought against it. Wonderful. This review was written for LibraryThing Early Reviewers. In this book Mietek Pemper recounts his memories concerning the Plaszow concentration camp and the creation of the list that saved over a thousand Jews towards the end of the Holocaust. Pemper had access to a great deal of information because he had a background in typing and clerical work, and was thus given the task of personal stenographer to camp director Amon Goth. He gained read (and typed) classified documents and was familiar with the inner workings of the camp and the larger picture than the majority of the other detainees. Pemper was constantly aware that a mistake, slip, or simple mood change near the notoriously cruel Goth (who killed prisoners with guns, bricks, whips, or by setting his dogs on them) could result in his death, or that of his family members. Quote: "After Goth had shot or tortured someone to death, he had the names and camp numbers of that person's entire family looked up in the camp files, so that he could kill them as well. On one such occasion, he remarked, 'I don't want anyone to be dissatisfied in my camp.'" The Road to Rescue contains some very interesting information, however it does tend towards dryness. The author is careful not to lump all Germans together, and is careful to give his blame to those he feels most deserve it - those who made choices to be cruel, sadistic, horrific, and who forced others to behave the same way. He does, however, note that the circumstances caused "average" people to act cruelly, sadistically, horrifically. He includes excerpts from school books taught to children around the time, which describe Jews as a different species without thought, incapable of feeling pain. Some of the camp guards had been relocated from country areas who had never met a Jewish person and were very susceptible to the insane laws they were taught. Others were unaware of the nature of the camp, even though they were SS - Pemper recounts the story of one SS judge who, in 1944, asked Pemper "how much more time do you have to do in the camp? What was your sentence," prompting Pemper's complete disbelief. Pemper testified in the trials that put high-ranking Nazi officials on trial (and resulted in their execution), including Goth, and saves the majority of his anger towards those on this level, even as he allows that all those involved had choices, and so few acted as Schindler did. no reviews | add a review
"Don't thank me for your survival, thank your valiant Stern and Pemper, who stared death in the face constantly."--Oskar Schindler in a speech to his released Jewish workers in May 1945. Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning film Schindler's List popularized the true story of a German businessman who manipulated his Nazi connections and spent his personal fortune to save some 1,200 Jewish prisoners from certain death during the Holocaust. But few know that those lists were made possible by a secret strategy designed by a young Polish Jew at the Płaszow concentration camp. Mietek Pemper's compelling and moving memoir tells the true story of how Schindler's list really came to pass. Pemper was born in 1920 into a lively and cultivated Jewish family for whom everything changed in 1939 when the Germans invaded Poland. Evicted from their home, they were forced into the Krakow ghetto and, later, into the nearby camp of Płaszow where Pemper's knowledge of the German language was put to use by the sadistic camp commandant Amon Goth. Forced to work as Goth's personal stenographer from March 1943 to September 1944--an exceptional job for a Jewish prisoner--Pemper soon realized that he could use his position as the commandant's private secretary to familiarize himself with the inner workings of the Nazi bureaucracy and exploit the system to his fellow detainees' advantage. Once he gained access to classified documents, Pemper was able to pass on secret information for Schindler to compile his famous lists. After the war, Pemper was the key witness of the prosecution in the 1946 trial against Goth and several other SS officers. The Road to Rescue stands as a historically authentic testimony of one man's unparalleled courage, wit, defiance, and bittersweet victory over the Nazi regime. No library descriptions found. |
LibraryThing Early Reviewers AlumMietek Pemper's book The Road to Rescue: The Untold Story of Schindler’s List was available from LibraryThing Early Reviewers. Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)940.53183History and Geography Europe Europe 1918- World War II Social, political, economic history; Holocaust HolocaustLC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |