Mimi Reinhardt (born Carmen Koppel; known as Carmen Weitmann –; 15 January 1915 – 8 April 2022) was an

Austrian Jew The history of the Jews in Austria probably begins with the exodus of Jews from Judea under Roman occupation. Over the course of many centuries, the political status of the community rose and fell many times: during certain periods, the Jewis ...

ish secretary. She worked for

Oskar Schindler Oskar Schindler (; 28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was a German industrialist, humanitarian and a member of the Nazi Party who is credited with saving the lives of 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ...

and typed his list of

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

workers to recruit for his factory.

Early years

Carmen Koppel was born to Emil and Frieda Koppel in

Wiener Neustadt Wiener Neustadt (; ; Central Bavarian: ''Weana Neistod'') is a city located south of Vienna, in the state of Lower Austria, in northeast Austria. It is a self-governed city and the seat of the district administration of Wiener Neustadt-Land Distr ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

. She learned shorthand to take notes better during her language studies at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hist ...

. In Vienna,

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

, she met her future husband, whom she followed from Austria to

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, in 1936. Their son, Sascha Weitmann, was born there in June 1939.

Oskar Schindler

Carmen Weitmann and her husband managed to bring their son and her grandmother to

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

during the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

occupation of

. She and her husband were arrested; he was shot at the gate of the

Kraków ghetto The Kraków Ghetto was one of five major metropolitan Nazi ghettos created by Germany in the new General Government territory during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It was established for the purpose of exploitation, terror, and ...

while trying to escape. At the time, she was 30 years old. After the liquidation of the ghetto, she was transported with other Jews to the Plaszow camp. As she knew shorthand, she was employed in the camp administration, where she met

. She knew he treated his Jewish workers well and became Schindler's secretary. After Schindler had asked the SS camp commander

Amon Göth Amon Leopold Göth (; alternative spelling ''Goeth''; 11 December 1908 – 13 September 1946) was an Austrian SS functionary and war criminal. He served as the commandant of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp in Płaszów in Germa ...

for more workers, she began to type out the list of workers from the ghetto of the Polish city of Krakow so that they could then be transferred to the Brünnlitz subcamp, where Oskar Schindler continued his armaments business. The train that was supposed to take the Jewish workers on the list from Plaszow to Brünnlitz in the fall of 1944 was diverted to Auschwitz. Mimi and the other "

Schindlerjuden The ', literally translated from German as "Schindler Jews", were a group of roughly 1,200 Jews saved by Oskar Schindler during the Holocaust. They survived the years of the Nazi regime primarily through the intervention of Schindler, who afforde ...

" were there for about two weeks and they described this time as "straight out of Dante's ''Inferno''". At the time, Schindler was trying to get "his" Jews from Auschwitz to Brünnlitz. Due to his help, 1,200 Jews survived there until the liberation in May 1945.

Later years and death

After the war, Weitmann found her son in

and moved with him to

Tangier International Zone The Tangier International Zone ( ''Minṭaqat Ṭanja ad-Dawliyya'', , es, Zona Internacional de Tánger) was a international zone centered on the city of Tangier, Morocco, which existed from 1924 until its reintegration into independent Moroc ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...

. There she met and married her second husband, a hotel manager surnamed Reinhardt. In 1957, the family moved to the United States and lived in New York. She had a second child, a daughter, with her second husband, but her daughter died of an illness at the age of 49. In 2007, at age 92, Reinhardt moved to

Herzliya Herzliya ( ; he, הֶרְצְלִיָּה ; ar, هرتسليا, Hirtsiliyā) is an affluent city in the central coast of Israel, at the northern part of the Tel Aviv District, known for its robust start-up and entrepreneurial culture. In it h ...

, Israel, to live with her son, Sacha Weitman, who was then a professor of sociology at Tel Aviv University. She died there in 2022, at age 107, in a

retirement home A retirement home – sometimes called an old people's home or old age home, although ''old people's home'' can also refer to a nursing home – is a multi-residence housing facility intended for the elderly. Typically, each person or couple in ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reinhardt, Mimi 1915 births 2022 deaths Holocaust survivors Austrian centenarians Women centenarians Amon Göth People who rescued Jews during the Holocaust Schindlerjuden Austrian Jews Kraków Ghetto inmates People from Vienna

External links

Image of Mimi Reinhardt in 2019