"Hello, I'm Steven Spielberg." "Schindler's List is far more than a movie to me... because it represents a profound journey... into the heart of a unique man... and, as it turned out, into my own heart as well." "Making Schindler's List not only deepened my faith... it changed the course of my life... because in telling the story of Oskar Schindler..." "I came to understand how one person-- not an army, but one person-- can make a difference." "You're about to meet some remarkable people." "Men and women who are doing just that." "They are Holocaust survivors who have shared their stories with us... as Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation." "After meeting quite a few survivors during the making of Schindler's List..." "I became convinced that archiving their testimonies... was the single most important thing we could do... to work against the kind of hatred and ignorance... that spawned the Holocaust." "So in a moment, you'll hear some of their stories... and I believe you'll find the experience as powerful... perhaps more so, than any film." "These accounts show us how ordinary men and women... can transcend circumstance and become extraordinary." "How victims can, with courage and fortitude... become victors." "Just looking at him, you know?" "Just looking at him made you feel good." "He loved women, wine." "He could drink, he could party." "He loved life." "He was a charming man." "He was using a lot of aftershave... and when he passed by... five minutes after you could smell he passed by." "Schindler was a chance taker." "He liked the possibility that there might be danger." "You know, trying to come out on the winning side... but he liked that excitement." "Schindler was not an angel... in dealing with black marketeering." "He didn't mind taking bribes and giving bribes." "But he did a wonderful thing." "He was life." "He was maybe future." "He was God for us." "We survived because of him." "Whatever they said" "We survived because of him." "I was born in Krakow, Poland... the most beautiful town in Poland." "Over a thousand years old." "Between our homes and the river... there was a meadow." "In the summertime we mostly ran around barefoot." "Really free souls." "We had a grand piano." "My two younger brothers" "One slept on the piano, one under the piano." "Getting a musical background." "My parents were very good Jews." "For the holy days, they always went to the synagogue... but otherwise we were very assimilated." "We considered Jewishness as a religion... but we considered ourselves as very patriotic Poles." "I personally wanted to go to the army." "I wanted to prove that we are not any different, the Jews... than any other Polish Catholic boys." "They send me to Bydgoszcz... the most strict, the most difficult officers'school." "In this particular school... there were certain requirements for Jews." "You are the best or you're out." "I always remember... the feeling you would get... from the Polish people." "This feeling like you don't belong." "You could hear my parents talking." "I could overhear their conversation about safety." "I didn't feel that they were safe." "I didn't think they felt secure in Poland." "They could throw stones at you... and you were not allowed to hit them back... because a Jew has to be a nice person." "You cannot hit back." "We were brought up not like today-- to stand for your rights." "1937, I remember hearing talk about Hitler." "Something was ominous, because everybody was concerned." "The older people were concerned, and talked in hushed tones... and listened to the foreign broadcasts... on the Telefunken radio." "The Kristallnacht was an orchestrated riot... instigated by the Nazi government." "They encouraged people to demolish Jewish property... and mistreat Jews on the streets." "It was definitely organized by the Nazis." "We never expected that something like this... could happen to our country, to Poland." "We believed in our army... and we thought that our cavalry could defeat the German tanks." "It was naïve, very naïve." "In 1939..." "I got the order to go immediately to my unit... which was 200 kilometers away from Krakow." "I arrived there Friday morning about 4.:00." "6:00, the war started." "My company was almost wiped out." "I took in 2 40 soldiers." "I took out 45." "That's all." "The rest all got killed or wounded." "There were a lot of air raids... and we used to have to go downstairs to the cellar." "You could hear the war coming closer and closer." "The war started on September 1 st... and the Germans walked into Krakow on September 7th." "I came from school, and I was playing outside." "Suddenly, we heard the march... and we heard, "The Germans are here. "" "There was a heightened feeling of..." ""Something is going to happen. "" "Feeling that things weren't gonna be so good for the Jews." "The regulation came out... limiting free movement for the Jewish people." "We were not allowed to use public transportation... and we were not allowed to use any educational facilities." "We were not allowed to walk on the sidewalk." "When you saw a German soldier walk... you had to step off the sidewalk." "At the end of 1939, we were told to wear... a white armband with a blue Star of David." "I felt very scared because we were marked." "The grown-ups were wearing them... and it was taken as..." ""Well, the war isn't going to go very much longer... so if we Jews have to wear armbands, that's okay."" "I saw the Germans rounding up the Hasidic Jews... in the old part of town." "Whoever had a beard... they were cutting off their beards, cutting off the peyos... and hitting, spitting and knifing." "And then they would take them away." "Lots of families... just were destroyed." "My father had always been a very proud man." "He was proud to be able to support his family." "Then these Nazis roughed him up and took him to jail." "When he came out, he was never really the same man... that he was before." "I was sleeping in bed... and I can see this picture like it's frozen." "My mother came and she said..." ""It's been three days and we still didn't get any bread."" "It was so cold, and she put her hands... into the down quilt that I was laying on." "That's the picture that I can remember... and I'll remember the rest of my life." "Some people fled right when the Germans came in... towards the Russian border." "My mother and I packed little suitcases... and we went as far as the end of the city." "Then my mother said, "Where are we going?" "Where will we go?" Two women alone." "We came back, and this was our biggest mistake." "All the savings accounts in the bank... were closed by the Germans." "We couldn't touch our money." "It wasn't worth that much, either." "So my mother was selling some of herjewelry... in order to sustain us." "My parents got rid of their nice furniture.... and silver and china and all of these things." "Sold them to the various non-Jewish neighbors." "I think it hurt my mother terribly... because she liked those things." "She was proud of them." "At that point, I lost my sense of security." "It was totally replaced by the beginnings of fear." "There was a van... that was owned by a German cheese company." "We called the van Käsewagen." "When the van showed up in the Jewish section of Krakow... a few German soldiers ran out of it." "They were catching people on the street who were near the van... and putting them in the van, taking them for hard labor." "Some came back, some didn't." "I remember that the neighbors appeared... with armbands sporting swastikas." "It was really... an incredible feeling to realize that you've been trusting people... and telling them your feelings and attitudes... and they were sympathizers of the Nazis." "The Poles were promised, "If you know the Jews--"" "Take us:" "We were living in a beautiful home." "We have a business." "If the Poles took over everything, what do we have?" "So it was better for them." "So why not?" "Because the Poles were poor too... and they knew, "When the Jews have something... why not take it away from them, and I have it?"" "My father's business was affected immediately." "When the Germans came in... they gave us a paper showing the order... that the factory is being taken over by the Germans." "They forced my father to teach the men who came over there-- who had absolutely no knowledge of shoe manufacturing-- to teach them how to manufacture a shoe." "There was a knock on the door, and there were three Germans." "One in a green uniform-- the Schutzpolizei or whatever-- and two in black uniforms of the so-called Volksdeutschen." "They came storming in our homes." "Always two, three-- armed" "They would take anything they wanted." "All the precious things in our homes." "It was a frightful experience, the way they behaved." "The way they turned everything around in the house." "The way they were taking out drawers... and throwing everything on the floor." "They came in, and they said..." ""You are arrested for political reasons."" "Then they took us to a gathering spot... which was an old Polish fortress in Krakow." "Here we are, coming from very nice apartments... with plenty of food and clothes... and here we come... thrown on the floor, cold." "We were received by the Jewish community center." "My friend was in charge of the welfare department there." "So he got the order to pick up some family... and assign some apartments for them." "He said, "Don't worry." "I have two empty apartments." "You will be with me."" "They came with a dorozhka." "You know what a dorozhka is?" "Horse and carriage." "I was waiting." "I didn't know he was bringing any company." "He said he has to stop... and let his brother know that they have guests." "And he stops." "And who does he bring back to the dorozhka?" "My husband-- future husband." "I met my wife this way Friday night." "We still were hoping it will go over... like a bad storm, a bad dream." "Nobody could believe it will go on forever and ever." "How can all this be happening... and nobody is doing anything about it?" "It just won't last." "Somebody was knocking on the door... and I was alone with my mother... and my mother looked through the looker in the door." "She saw a guy with a big swastika." "And she was thinking, "It's the Gestapo. "" "And I said to her, "Let him in. "" "I hide behind the door and listen to the conversation." "My mother was a very talented interior decorator... and he came to my mother-- recommended by a Jew-- for my mother to redecorate his apartment." "From the way he was talking to my mother..." "I realize the man is some different type of guy... and I stepped forward." "He was taller than I." "I considered myself pretty handsome, and he was an extremely handsome man." "I look in his eyes, he looks in my eyes... and what happened?" "Some thread of sympathy... some understanding started between the German Catholic... and the Jewish Polish officer." "And this way the friendship between me and Oskar Schindler started... which lasted to the day he died." "Schindler came as a black marketeer to Poland... and his only aim was to make money." "He didn't come to Poland to save Jews." "He came to Poland to make his fortune, and he did." "One day they said... all the Jewish people have to move to the ghetto." "We just had to walk out... from the house." "Then the Polish people stood on the sidewalk... and they were yelling..." ""Good riddance." "Go, don't come back. "" "Such hate." "It was such hate." "Such unbelievable hate." "We were numb." "I remember I couldn't even cry." "I didn't know if I was alive or I was dead." "At first we didn't have any walls around the ghetto... but then they started putting up a wall around the ghetto... and they even bricked in windows and doors... of buildings facing towards the outside of the ghetto." "When we moved to the ghetto... we were assigned one room with two windows." "For each window, they assigned three people." "So when the room had two windows... six people had to live in that room." "My father, during that period of time... was working in Schindler's company." "Schindler took over a factory... that made enamel pots and pans." "His Jewish workers came to work from the ghetto." "Schindler had actually increased his Jewish workforce... so my father asked Schindler if he could take my older brother." "Schindler did just that." "So my father and my brother used to march out... to go to Schindler's company and come back." "I was assigned to work in a factory... which in those days repaired the German uniforms." "One day they said to us..." ""You're not going back to the ghetto today." "We need you. " They didn't say why." "They told us to stay." "They gave us something to eat." "They told us to sleep on the tables, on the benches." "The next day, we worked all day... and in the evening, as usual, they took us back to the ghetto." "And the ghetto was half empty." "The ghetto was simply a holding pen." "The evidence we know... is that immediately after the ghetto was created-- where everyone was herded into it en masse-- they began to take people out in transports... and send them somewhere else." "Those people were sent someplace." "Supposed to be to the labor camps." "The first transport ever taken out of the ghetto... was one where they took people out to the countryside... and had them do labor and return." "They went back to their families." "But the subsequent transports never returned." "Two armed SS men walked into our room... and dragged my father out." "He turned around to us, tried to put us at ease." "He said, "Don't worry, children." "They're taking me to work." "They need me."" "I was just looking, staring at him... and with his sweet smile he turned and he said..." ""Don't you worry." "I'll be okay." "They need me."" "Those were his words." "His last words." "They came and announced they were going to change Kennkarte... which was the identification... for another identification called the Blauschein." "My sister, my father and myself got the Blauschein." "My mother didn't." "We heard marching, 5.:00 in the morning." "Sure enough, the whole ghetto was surrounded." "SS march into the ghetto." "My mother told me to hide." "We lived in an old building... and the back of it was connected with the street behind." "There was big bushes and big trees... and my grandfather, my grandmother and myself... we laid down under the bushes." "My mother and her sister covered us with leaves... and they left." "In between our two buildings where we lived... there was a small building." "Above that was an attic." "It didn't look like it would have an attic... because it was like a lean-to in the courtyard." "So my mother decided that was where I was going to hide... with two of my friends." "In our room was a little closet." "We put my mother into the closet... and we shoved an armoire against the door of the closet... so the door was not visible." "My mother wasn't going to hide." "She was just going to take her chances... and probably be shipped off." "But she remembered that we were up there... and we didn't have anything to eat or drink." "They made an announcement that every inhabitant of the ghetto... should report to this courtyard... of a huge building in which we lived." "My mother filled up a teapot... and she was carrying it across the yard to hand it to us." "We all went down to the courtyard." "The Germans came and they were checking everybody's papers." "Whoever didn't have the Blauschein... they sent outside." "And as she was coming up... the guards broke in and they started yelling." "So she set the teapot down... and just by instinct crawled up into this crawl space." "Then, while we were still standing in the square... they made searches from room to room, from house to house." "We were standing in the courtyard watching... while they walked into our apartment... where my mother was hidden in the closet... and our hearts stopped." "The Germans are running around and they're yelling." "Bringing people out of other apartments-- little children and women." "They hauled the woman-- the mother of those two children out." "We heard shots outside." "They were shooting people outside." "It was just a horrible thing... but it lasted practically the whole day." "When nightfall came, things began to quiet down." "You could just hear sporadic shootings and yelling." "I remember it was very quiet... and we just laid there and we laid there." "My mother came in again with her sister, and she said..." ""It's all right." "You can come out now." "Everybody's gone."" "We pushed away the armoire." "We opened the door." "My mother was on the floor, faint... because of the lack of air, and the fright, and everything else." "All of a sudden, from the back... two soldiers came." "It was probably the last patrol of the day." "They were not supposed to be there anymore." "They were supposed to have left." "Of course they asked for papers... and my grandparents didn't have any." "And they took them." "They took them." "I just remember standing there... and they were walking away with nothing." "They were walking away." "Somebody came the following day... and called us by name." "My father had sent someone, and tried" "He didn't know whether we survived or not." "But he thought by some chance if we did... if he called us by name, maybe we would come out, and we did." "That day... they deported 7,000 people and they killed 1,000." "There were starting to be rumors-- very soon, about early 1942" "One man was able to flee, to escape from Belzec." "He said that people are being exterminated there... in the gas chambers." "He started to talk with us... about what he saw with his own eyes." "Nobody believed him... particularly people who were in charge in the Jewish council." "We were thinking that he got crazy." "We didn't believe it, because... if, God forbid, it would happen now... we had a precedent in history." "We would be watchful... maybe we would be more frightened... but in those days there was no precedent in history." "Who could visualize that a man... is capable of doing something like this to another man?" "The Germans began to build a camp... just outside of Krakow." "Plaszow." "Some people were slowly being moved into Plaszow." "For example, those people who were building the camp... already lived there." "We didn't know whether this would be a labor camp or whatever." "But we were resigned." "Whatever will happen, will happen." "The Germans came very early-- 4.:30 in the morning." "They were running through the ghetto." "The truck was driving through the ghetto with a loudspeaker... that everybody had to pack up... and leave the ghetto by 6.:00 at night." "But they would only allow those people who had jobs to leave." "And everyone who remained was taken directly to the death camps." "Germans always yelling and screaming." ""Get out." "Hurry up. "" "They were dragging people, and kicking and pushing." "We started to hear shooting in the ghetto." "People who couldn't walk fast enough" "They kicked them." "They shot them on the spot." "They took some of the children and knocked their heads on the walls." "They swung them by the legs and killed them that way." "There were corpses lying in the streets." "Blood all over." "We all saw it." "I ran to the corner to meet my group." "My mother was already either behind me or ahead of me." "I don't know because I actually walked without my mother." "I was afraid." "My husband had plans to escape through the sewers." "So my husband left... and the German megaphones were announcing constantly..." ""Get out of the apartments... because if you get caught, you will be shot." "We will be looking. "" "When I found out that they were killing people in the sewers..." "I went for Mila." "I came over." "There is no Mila anymore." "I got scared." "I walked out." "I took a little bundle with me." "I think I joined one of the very last groups... from the ghetto going toward the camp." "Then I decide to hide from the dogs... which are going with the Nazis through the street." "They will smell me out." "So I start to move the bundles that people left... when they were sent to Plaszow." "When an SS officer came close to me, I saluted." "I report to him, in a military way... that I got an order from another officer to clean the road." "They started laughing, because it was a stupid order." "But he was an officer." "He hit me with a right punch and said, "Verschwind"... which means, "Get lost. "" "I salute again, click my heels... turned, and slowly I went away... till the next corner, and then I ran." "Those that remained in the ghetto were all murdered." "Those friends that I had, I never saw them again." "So the ghetto was closed... and everyone found was liquidated and murdered." "It was then that we realized nothing was going to save us." "When I first got to Plaszow... it looked like something that I'd never seen before." "It was gray." "It had no color." "It was surrounded by barbed wire." "It was depressing." "Very depressing." "The barracks were huge and very crowded." "The bunk beds were really not like bunk beds." "They were like shelves." "You couldn't sit on it." "You had to lay down." "In the warm summer months... it was so terribly hot." "It was like a shower of bedbugs." "They used to go in our noses and in our ears." "Amon Goeth was the commander of the camp." "Used to ride a big white horse." "He was riding the horse all through camp... and if somebody looked at him and he didn't like his looks... he just took out his pistol... and shot." "If you walk too slow... you get shot." "If you stop for a second carrying bricks" "A woman stopped for a second to catch her breath." "If he noticed from the balcony, he shot you." "I was ordered to clean the barracks." "On the third day..." "Amon Goeth walked into the barracks for inspection." "Suddenly he stopped in front of me." "He said to the woman that was in charge of us..." ""If a Jewish girl is smart enough... to clean a window on a sunny day... she probably is good for me." "Send her to my house."" "When I arrived in this house, I was told to iron his shirt." "Did I know how to iron a shirt?" "No." "I never did anything at home." "My mom never let us do anything." "I was the baby." "All of a sudden I felt a pull from the back by my braids... and a slap on my cheek... that everything swiveled in front of me." "He said, "In Austria, a girl your age... knows how to iron a shirt properly... but you're too stupid." "You are a Jew. "" "And then he gave me such a beating." "I was thrown down the stairs." "Then he came down the few steps... and he slapped me so many times." "And I had to stand there and look straight in his face." "You know how hard it was not to break down?" "You know how tough I became?" "I was like a rock." "He had a couple of different hats... hanging right near the entrance of the villa." "And you know, it's amazing... that I knew by the hat he put on that he would be killing people." "If he would put on a Tyrolean hat... you knew that day that he was going to kill a lot of people." "When he came out wearing white gloves... you knew that he is out for slaughter." "He's going to kill a lot of people." "Later, when he came through the gate of the villa... he would whistle." "A happy whistle, like he's content." "He accomplished something." "There was a little hill in Plaszow... where they were usually executing people." "They took out a whole group of people in front of the ravine." "They asked us to get undressed." "They made the people strip." "They put them against the hill... and they went around with machine guns and" "They shot me in my leg." "In my leg." "And since this was already late afternoon... there were people already in the ravine." "And I happened to wind up... on top of the people." "They started to cover up the graves, but not too much." "They just put in a few shovels of soil, because it was late... and they had enough killing for the day... and wanted to finish it up." "I don't know how long I was there." "For two hours, three hours-- But it was nighttime." "I crawled... and I came to the barracks." "They couldn't believe in the barracks... that I came back from the dead!" "The children that were smuggled to Plaszow from the ghetto" "Some of the parents gave their children away to Polish people." "But there were still 300 children in Plaszow." "One day... they called us to come to the Appellplatz one hour early." "We didn't know why." "Men, women" " The whole camp." "They were setting up machine guns all around us... with SS guards." "All of a sudden, through loudspeakers, they started playing music." "The Germans put on German lullabies." "They played a tune, "Mommy, Buy Me a Little Horsey. "" "And while they were playing music... trucks started coming in on the road facing the Appellplatz." "They collected all the little children in the whole camp." "And they put them on trucks." "And they were taking them away." "At first we didn't realize it." "Then all of a sudden we heard screaming and little hands waving." "Mothers started running, and everybody started yelling." "The loudspeaker announced that if anybody would move... the children would be shot." "And it came over the loudspeaker, "Everybody lie down."" "And everybody lay down, but some of the mothers wouldn't." "They started running toward the trucks, and they were shot." "And they took away about 300-400 children." "They took them to Auschwitz." "This was the end." "We talk about people not resisting... and not running away and all this." "But there was a resistance." "We did resist." "As hard as it was, and as dangerous as it was... people practiced their religion... celebrated the holidays... which was all prohibited, of course, under penalty of death." "Resisting isn't always with mechanical weapons." "Whether it's singing songs or writing poems... or telling jokes... they couldn't suppress that part of the spirit." "We would pretend... that the women are lighting candles... and making the blessing over the candles." "And people had some special songs." "Some of them were humorous, but the humor was gallows humor." "My Polish is no longer that very, very good... but I do remember this song... because the heads were covered up... with white coverings." "Goeth learned that we were musicians... and called us... to entertain the people, his guests." "One drunk officer asked us to play a Hungarian tune... which was banned before the war in Hungary and Poland." "They called it a suicidal tune, called "Gloomy Sunday."" "It was a beautiful tune... about a young boy in love with a girl." "She left him." "He commit suicide." "He asked us to play that tune." "He was a bit drunk." "We play it once." "He asked us to play again and again, six times." "And then he went on the balcony." "He shoot himself." "He commit suicide." "Oskar Schindler started to come as his guest." "And right from the beginning, I noticed he was rather different." "He was always very happy." "He drank a lot... but he was never drunk." "He never was drunk, but he was always happy." "His hands were always up when he talked." "He was always the center of everybody in the room." "He came a couple of times with his wife." "She was a very subdued, dignified lady." "But also I saw him quite a few times with other young women." "And he would stay over." "On the third floor, there was a guest room." "And he would play cards with Goeth." "They were really very friendly." "But Oskar Schindler... would always come, under some excuse, down to the kitchen... for a cup of coffee, for another bottle of wine." "And when he came down... he would always have something to say to me... to give me hope." "He even took me to the window... to look out where people were working." "He said, "You remember the Jews in Egypt were slaves... and then they were freed?"" "He said, "This is what's gonna happen to you." "One day you're gonna be all free from this hell." "You will see. "" "It felt good, to be honest with you." "It felt good hearing those words." "But I wasn't quite sure what was going on... because he was there with them... and I felt he was a Nazi like the rest of them." "Schindler used to take out people from Plaszow... and people were walking to his factory." "But then, because he had so many conflicts with Goeth" "Goeth would keep the people and not let them go to work." "We were constantly standing on the Appellplatz." "And Schindler didn't have people to come to work." "So he told them that he wants to build barracks... right on the premises of the factory." "And that's what he did." "They gave him permission to do that." "The excuse was that the workers would be more efficient and be right there... and they wouldn't have to be walking back and forth." "But Schindler had an ulterior motive to do that." "Even then..." "Schindler was trying to protect his workers from the Nazis." "There were no hangings, no beatings, and we worked." "We worked maybe 12 hours, but we couldn't die from it." "Oskar Schindler made his workers feel that he cared about us... and he wanted to help us, and he wanted to feed us." "We had meat." "We had soup." "We had bread." "We were very well fed." "It was a complete different ball game." "We worked on this factory floor... and he would come down and slowly walk through... and actually stop at different places and talk to people." "And one time he stopped at my father's work station... and put his arm around him on his shoulder... and said, "Don't worry." "Everything is going to be okay."" "I'm sure he didn't know it was going to be okay... but it was just sort of the human kind of thing to do." "No Nazi would ever do a thing like that." "I was working on a little machine, a lathe." "One day, a foreman came and took me away from the lathe... and put me on the big press in the middle of the factory." "And while I was working there, the machine broke down." "And the foreman came running... and yelling that I sabotaged the production." "The sentence for sabotage was death." "They could kill you." "And somebody went to get Oskar Schindler." "And I remember how he came down and said..." ""Was ist los?"" ""What's happening?"" "And they said to him that..." "I did something to the machine." "I broke the machine." "He walks around." "He looks at me." "He looks at the foreman." "And this" " I mean, his face." "He says, "This little girl broke this machine?" "You moron, she couldn't possibly break this machine. "" "He patted me on my head and said, "Where were you working before?"" "I pointed out this machine to him, and he said to the foreman..." ""That's where she works." "That's where she's gonna stay."" "Eventually, the war for the Germans went bad on the Eastern Front... and the Russians were advancing." "And companies like Schindler's company were going to be liquidated." "But Schindler decided that... he would not let his workers simply go." "He was going to transfer his company... lock, stock and barrel, over to Czechoslovakia... and move his Jewish workers with him." "He assembled us all in a courtyard... and he told us the factory's going to be moved... to Brinnlitz, to Czechoslovakia." "We are going to be sent back to Plaszow... and then we're gonna come to Czechoslovakia." "For us it was like a dream, what he was telling us." "We didn't believe him, because he was a German." ""Aw, what he's talking?" "He would take us?" "Why should he take us?" "He would take whoever he wants."" "This was a pretty outlandish or preposterous suggestion, really." "All these "experts"... had to be transferred with the company." "But he managed to do all this by bribing people... and by his fast talking and whatever." "He bought out an unused knitting factory." "He said that he's going to make a munitions factory in there." "And for this, he needed 1,200 people, so they started to make lists." "We knew that Schindler is preparing to move his factory." "Then Mila said, "Pol, get us on the list to Schindler." "He's your friend." "He did so much for you and for the family." "Maybe he will put us on the list."" "And then Poldek passed a little slip of paper to Mr. Schindler." "And I think that Mr. Schindler personally approved us on that list." "This was the day before the men left that we got on the list... in the very last moment." "Everything was happening very, very quick, very rapidly." "The deportations were going very fast." "They were trying to liquidate Camp Plaszow." "Till one day, there comes Schindler." "And he said to me, "I built a factory... in Czechoslovakia." "And you're coming with me."" "I was, like, stunned." "But all of a sudden... everything he told me before started to be put together." "Because he always used to tell me, "You will survive." "I will help you."" "And here he is." "And he said to me, "You have family?"" "Oh, if I would have my family... he would take probably everybody." "I said, "I do have only two sisters."" "He said, "Give me their names."" "When the time came to leave... they put us into boxcars." "Women separately and men separately." "We didn't know where we're going, what's going to be." "All we knew that we were on Schindler's list... and we thought that this is the best thing that could happen to us." "But we still didn't trust that Schindler would persevere." "We were put on this train and sent to Brinnlitz." "But I was never certain." "I was always in doubt that that actually was going to happen." "And as we arrived in Brinnlitz, we walked out of the boxcars." "Schindler was standing there." "We felt such a relief... that here is the man who's going to protect us." "And we felt that maybe now we have a chance of survival." "But we started worrying about the women." "Where is my mother?" "Where is my sister?" "Where are the women?" "We left a week after our men left." "And we got on the trains." "And so happy we are going, you know." "We're going to join our men." "And we're going to be with Mr. Schindler." "We were very happy." "Instead, in the middle of the night, we arrived in Auschwitz." "The whole place was lighted up." "The dogs all over." ""Heraus!" "Heraus!"" "And they were calling us names..." ""You whores!" "You subhumans!" "Get out!" "Get out!"" "That was so scary right away." "You didn't have even time to realize what's going on." "All we saw is the chimneys, and everybody was looking up... but nobody said anything." "We looked at the chimney, and there was smoke coming out... and the sky looked red." "There was such a stench in Auschwitz." "You could smell the burning flesh." "It was like everything was covered with the smoke, with the ashes." "We were covered." "The barracks were covered." "The roads were covered." "Everything was covered." "And we were told to run, and we stopped in front of a barrack." "It said on it "Bathhouse."" "We stood in line." "We were told to strip." ""Schnell!"" "It means, "Fast!" "Get undressed!" "And throw it on the pile."" "I put my shoes." "I had a sweater." "It was cold, you know, winter." "I had a little picture of my father." "And I'm holding the last bunch of pictures in my hand." "And I'm looking at the pile, and I'm naked." "I said, "If I throw this away..." "I will never see the faces of my parents, ever."" "I started to look through the pictures so quickly." "I found a couple of photos for passports." "I turned around very quickly... and I stuck it in my mouth." "The SS guards shaved us." "Men." "We stood naked." "They shaved our hair." "We were shaved here." "When they shoved us into the shower room... we didn't know what to expect." "Whether we were gonna have the gas... or whether we were gonna have actual water." "And I remember we're waiting, and the water didn't come out." "This means that the gas will come out." "So we were waiting, waiting." "One would look at the other." "We couldn't do anything." "Then, in one moment, it start." "The water was coming out." "I said, "Oh, boy." So it's good." "My older sister looked at me and said, "Are you all right?"" "While the water was coming down." "I said, "Mm-hmm."" "She says, "What's the matter with you?" "Are you okay?"" "I couldn't talk." "I had those pictures in my mouth." "And as soon as we came out, I said, "I'm okay." "But I have the pictures in my mouth of Mom and Dad. "" "She says, "Why would you do a thing like that?" "They would kill you."" "But I had my pictures." "After the showers, they pushed us into another room." "We couldn't go back to get our clothes." "They gave us little dresses that were sheer." "We walked through the roads of the camp, so muddy." "And we saw the people." "The women didn't look human." "I look at my mother and all the other people I knew so well." "I said, "That can't be us. "" "Like we were already dead." "Like they took my soul out." "We were terribly hungry... but we couldn't eat even what was given to us... because we were all sick with dysentery." "Every day we were getting sicker and sicker." "And we also were called out in the middle of the night to be counted." "Outside, in the freezing cold." "I was trembling, and my teeth werejittering, it was so cold." "And I looked up in the gray sky." "And I thanked God." "I thanked God that my mother had died already." "It was so cold." "We were in Auschwitz three weeks." "We couldn't figure out how we got there." "We were supposed to go to Brinnlitz to work." "I was thinking that this is our end." "I did not expect us to ever be rescued by Mr. Schindler... or being able to get away from this hell." "We were so totally dehumanized." "I always kept saying, "Schindler will do something."" "I felt that he's gonna save us." "Oskar Schindler sent a beautiful German woman... with lots of gifts and lots of money... to the SS officer in charge to talk with him." "Something happened between him and her and the gifts... and the sausages and liquor and vodka that Schindler sent to him." "And a few days later, the women were coming." "That was the happiest day, I think... because we knew that we were going to Schindler." "We knew." "They called us, the list, the name." "It never happened in the history of Auschwitz... that they would call prisoners by their name." "They usually had numbers." "And so they sent us back on a train to Brinnlitz." "The gate opened of the factory, 6:00." "And that was a foggy day." "Like a shadow, you know, in the fog, the women were coming." "We probably looked like a group of ghosts." "And we came into the courtyard... and Mr. Schindler greeted us like long-lost relatives." "He said, "Welcome." "Don't worry about anything." "Now you are with me." "You're going to be okay." "Don't be afraid." "Soup and bread are inside." "Go and help yourself."" "Brinnlitz was a small village... and we were outside of the town in a camp." "The camp was not a camp, really." "It was a factory." "Downstairs was the factory." "Upstairs we slept." "We did not have bunks... so we slept on the straw." "With Mr. Schindler, we didn't mind anything." "Everything was terrific." "We felt, everybody of us... that as long as Schindler is with us... nothing will happen to us." "We knew Schindler is there." "And I especially knew what he told me." "I felt safe." "We started to work." "The work was really very" "It was a big sabotage, because we really didn't do a thing." "Nothing ever was manufactured in the factory... but for appearances, we were working." "I was put into a tool-making department." "What did I know about tool-making?" "Nothing." "Left hand didn't know what right hand is doing." "Not one bullet came out of the factory." "And then another time Goeth came to visit." "We were lined up to greet him... and Schindler walked through with Goeth." "And of course in Plaszow, you didn't dare lift your eyelids to look at Goeth." "Your head was always down." "Well, we felt so protected by Schindler... that we looked at him." "For the first time, we really looked in the guy's face." "And it was a good feeling... to be able to look the monster in his face." "There was one man in our group... who was a tremendously optimistic person." "Besides that, he worked in Schindler's office... and from time to time he heard news on the radio." "So he used to come every evening and tell us all kinds of stories... about victories of the Allies." "How the Germans are on the run... and how the Russians are getting close." "Like a hundred people used to surround him and listen to his stories." "Everybody knew that something is going on... and the war is coming to the end." "So we were waiting, waiting." "At that point..." "Churchill had a victory speech in England... and Schindler put it on the loudspeaker system in the factory." "Being that I had English lessons before the war..." "I could understand here and there what Churchill was saying... and translating it to my friends around me." "Yesterday morning, at 2:41 a.m., at General Eisenhower's headquarters" "It was such excitement, because we heard... you know, his victory speech." "We knew something was going on." "All of a sudden, everybody realized... that we are safe." "That we are free." "We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing." "And while I stood there..." "I just couldn't believe... that here I am... the Germans still occupy this part of Czechoslovakia... and I am listening to Churchill." "When it dawned on me, it was something... that my imagination could never form a moment like that." "I can hear Churchill speaking." "...the act of unconditional surrender... of all German land, sea and air forces in Europe." "The last time I saw Schindler is when he talked to us on the factory floor." "We were standing on the factory floor... and I was smaller than anybody in there." "And we were sort of crowded around... so I had to just take a peek at him every now and then... in between the bodies." "He opened the warehouses." "He had a warehouse where he had a lot of textiles." "Every one of us got several pieces of fabric." "So we could either barter it for something else, or sell it... or make something for ourselves." "So each one had a little capital with which to start a new life... thanks to Mr. Schindler." "He knew that we were going to be liberated by the Russians." "And he had to give himself up to the Americans... because the Russians would shoot him." "We felt, "He saved us." "We have to save him."" "He and Mrs. Schindler changed into prisoners uniforms... even though they didn't look like prisoners, because they had hair." "We all signed an affidavit that he indeed saved us." "Then we all went and kissed" "The whole line of people went by... and kissed Oskar's hand and Mrs. Schindler's hand." "And then we all cried." "I cried." "I felt like my father was being taken away again." "They took Schindler out in his car at night... and they drove him to the American border, to his safety." "We were a few days in no-man's land." "You know what I mean?" "Because the Germans left... and the Russians didn't arrive yet." "Three days later, the first Russian major... with another soldier came on horse-- only two of them-- "We're liberating you."" "It was an eerie feeling." "You know, in front of our camp... there was a big, big-- almost a mountain... like a big hill." "And being in the camp, we always said," ""What are we going to do if we will be free?" "What's beyond that hill?" "What will we do?"" "And when the liberation came... we went beyond the hill." "My parents decided Poland was not the place to stay." "And in October, we smuggled over the border." "We escaped from Poland and went back to Germany." "I was 16 years old... and a third of my life was destroyed." "So I started looking for someplace to learn something." "I knew how to read, but I didn't know how to write." "I was 14, and I had only had two years of school." "So the important thing was to get caught up." "I went to a school for girls." "It was a convent, and there was an elderly nun there." "She was 92 years old." "She had entered the convent at the age of 16... because of a broken love affair... and had never left it." "She did not know what it was like on the outside, really." "She accepted me totally for what I was... which was wonderful, you know?" "She was very kind." "It's the only time I cry, when I think about her." "She was good." "There were some good Germans." "Not everybody was bad." "Within a few months, I was in the immigration department." "I tried to immigrate myself and my parents." "My parents came too." "And we got the American visa..." "Rosh Hashanah, 1946." "We got on the ship the end of December." "And I was very sick on the ship." "On the fourth day, I got so sick that I thought I was dying." "When I came over on the boat..." "I have $10 and Mila has $10 in the pocket." "The only money we have." "So the captain and the doctor... and one officer need fourth guy to play bridge." "They found me." "I play bridge with them for the five nights we were there." "And I landed with $105 in America." "That was my fortune." "New York was very exciting at the time." "You know, Broadway and neon lights everywhere." "It was just beautiful." "My uncle drove us then from New York to Iowa." "Our relatives, my uncle and aunt, lived in LA... so we came straight to Los Angeles from Germany." "My first order was to learn English... and fit into this new life." "The arrival in Chicago was really funny because my cousin... was standing in the railroad station with a very long cigar." "They brought us to their house." "We had lunch." "And first my cousin was showing me a banana." "He says, "This is called banana."" "He was showing us all kinds of things." "I thought this was so ridiculous." "I said to my father, "You know something?" "I can't take it." "Who does he think we are?" "Where does he think we came from?"" "He says, "Be nice."" "Then my cousin takes us into the alley." "He says, "You see this car?" "This is the best American car." "This is called automobile."" "At that moment his wife calls him to the telephone... and I get into the car, I start it, and I drive around the block." "In Chicago, they park the cars in the alley in the back." "When I came back into the alley, the whole family was standing." "My cousin was pale." "He says, "How did you know how to drive?"" "I said, "I have an international driver's license." "Don't worry about it."" "So he got on the telephone." "He called all his friends." ""My greenhorn knows how to drive. "" "Schindler had really not succeeded anymore afterwards." "He tried everything." "He opened a cement factory in Germany." "He made a film." "Nothing really went well." "As brave as he was during the war, and as enterprising... he just couldn't function in the normal world." "He couldn't make a living." "He went to Argentina, where he bought a farm." "The fact is that he was there for quite a while... and he wasn't prosperous." "But he lived with the war times, with the people he saved." "He knew about everybody's children's bar mitzvah." "He was telling me that this one has a son... and this one is this, and this one is that." "He was always telling me stories... about the people who he saved." "We on Schindler's list... are so unbelievably lucky... because if it was not for Oskar Schindler..." "I would never be here." "I would never have survived... wouldn't have had a chance to get married... and have children and grandchildren." "Hitler tried to destroy us... but he didn't succeed." "One greatest day was when I was liberated." "My second greatest day was when my child was born." "What Schindler did is more important than just having saved 1,200 Jews." "Just speaking about myself..." "I taught in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 39 years." "I've had thousands of students... and thousands of good friends as a result." "Some of my students feel like I'm their father." "So one man gets saved, and then after that... generations and generations are saved." "I think that the only hope for mankind... is if we really learn how to live with each other." "Don't hate." "Try to live with your neighbor." "Accept people for what they are." "Everybody has something to offer." "Nobody's better than anybody else." "We are all links... of a very big chain." "I don't want to hate. because it's an ugly word." "And it's related with evil." "If such a cultured country as Germany" "She was known for music, for high education, for respect." "If they could have done this to another nation... any other nation could do this." "Don't take nothing for granted." "Anything could happen." "I live thanks to the humanity of a man... who was a German Catholic bon vivant... who gambled with his life and his money and his wife's life... and proved the point that humanity still exists." "I'm sure it never occurred to him... that he was going to end up doing what he did." "It just happened that circumstances were such... that he was faced with this choice." "And being the kind of person he was... he couldn't face letting us be murdered." "Oskar Schindler is proof that one person can make a difference." "You've just met a few of the more than 52,000 survivors... interviewed by the Shoah Foundation." "In hearing their stories, it's clear... that the scale of the atrocity they witnessed... and the burden they carry because of it... are simply beyond our capacity to comprehend." "But by sharing their experiences... they help to inform us all about how hatred is born... how it grows and what it can destroy." "We are so grateful to these men and women... gratified that they have entrusted their stories to future generations." "That they survived is a miracle." "Through the Shoah Foundation... they've had the chance to survive a second time." "In a sense, to survive forever."