"THE ROAD TO RESCUE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF SCHINDLER'S LIST," by Mietek Pemper, Other Press, 284 pages, $24.95
This fascinating book takes readers through some of the bleakest days of Nazi domination of the Jews. It also reveals the story of Mietek Pemper, a personal stenographer and secretary for Amon Goth, the commandant of the Krakow-Plaszow concentration camp and one of the era's most brutal mass murderers.
Told in a precise, honest style, the story has a long-lasting impact without being unbearably painful.
Even though it's hard to comprehend how men can be so cruel and unmerciful, Pemper's story isn't a depressing read, largely because his humanity and compassion shine through.
He lays out the grim situation, the difficult circumstances and the events in meticulous detail. "I found myself working for a mass murderer," he writes, but he doesn't make the reading so graphic that one considers tossing the book.
He's clearly intent on telling the story truthfully and fully, and he makes certain Oskar Schindler gets credit for saving more than a thousand Jews. He labels Schindler a protector of human life who took enormous personal risks, but Pemper also acknowledges Schindler's flaws.
At the same time, Pemper lays much of the blame for senseless torture and the murder of at least 8,000 Jews on Goth.
He includes the people who did good things for the helpless. He neither minimizes nor boasts of his own role as he gleaned bits of valuable classified information in his work and used it protect fellow Jews.
It's a riveting read, enlightening and well told. It's accessible for the average reader as well as for the history scholar.
While sobering to contemplate man's inhumanity to his fellow beings, it's almost incredulous that individuals could actually believe the lies circulated by the Nazi regime.
Weighed with the evidence of such cruelty and torture, even the small insults seem to sting in the retelling.
At Jagiellonian University, the Jews were told to sit on the "Jewish" benches, so defiant Jews stood until a "no standing" rule was passed. Jews were forced to sweep streets, shovel the snow and take in others when there was no more room for decent living.
They were denied the use of public transportation, held to curfews, stripped onof their possessions, livelihoods and personal dignities. They were ordered to resettle in ghetto housing, forced to perform endless calisthenics even unto death.
Women inmates were made to pull heavy lorries loaded with building materials. Families were torn apart, lives broken, men starved.
The intentional, personal cruelty is almost impossible to comprehend.
Schindler, Pemper and others who risked their own safety to save others are remarkable.
After the liberation, Pemper testified in great detail again at great personal risk — at the trials of those who slaughtered inmates in the labor and concentration camps.
"He who helps no one lives without purpose" was Pemper's mantra.
This book will help those who didn't have to live through this dark time to understand some of what happened, and it will make readers more apt to help if such situations should ever occur again.
E-mail: haddock@desnews.com