Leopold "Poldek" Pfefferberg (March 20, 1913 – March 9, 2001), also known as Leopold Page,HON. TOM LANTOS, in the House of Representatives. 21 April, 1994
Library of Congress. Retrieved 8 September 2006. was a Polish-American Holocaust

survivor Survivor(s) may refer to: Actual survivors * *Last survivors of historical events Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Survivors, characters in the 1997 ''KKnD'' video-game series * ''The Survivors'', or the ''New Survivors Found ...

who inspired the Australian writer Thomas Keneally to write the

Booker prize The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a Literary award, literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United King ...

-winning novel ''

Schindler's Ark ''Schindler's Ark'' is a historical novel published in 1982 by the Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The United States edition of the book was titled ''Schindler's List;'' it was later reissued in Commonwealth countries under that name as we ...

'', which in turn was the basis for

Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spie ...

's critically acclaimed 1993 film '' Schindler's List''.

Life

Early life

Pfefferberg was born into a Jewish family in Kraków, then a part of the Austria-Hungary. He gained a master's degree in philosophy and physical education from the

Jagiellonian University The Jagiellonian University (Polish: ''Uniwersytet Jagielloński'', UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and the 13th oldest university in ...

. Pfefferberg was a high-school teacher in Kraków until 1939 and the physical education professor at Kościuszko Gymnasium in Podgórze.

The Holocaust

After the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, he joined the Polish Army as an officer and took part in the defence of Poland against the invasion. He later explained to the Australian novelist Thomas Keneally how he was wounded on the San River where his life was saved by his sergeant major, who carried him to a field hospital. After Poland was defeated and partitioned between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Pfefferberg needed to decide whether it would be safer to travel east towards the Soviets or west towards the Germans. He later recalled this choice:

We officers had to decide to go east or west. I decided not to go east, even though I was Jewish. If I had, I would have been shot with all the other poor sons of bitches in Katyn Forest.

After sneaking back to Kraków, he was imprisoned along with the rest of the area's Jews, in 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, an ...

. Pfefferberg used a German-issued document to visit his soldiers in a military hospital, and also to visit his mother. This is how he first met Oskar Schindler, a

Sudeten Sudeten may refer to: * Sudeten Mountains * Sudetenland * Sudeten Germans German Bohemians (german: Deutschböhmen und Deutschmährer, i.e. German Bohemians and German Moravians), later known as Sudeten Germans, were ethnic Germans living in ...

-German businessman who was taking over an enamelware factory that had been confiscated from Jews. Schindler employed Pfefferberg's mother, an interior designer, to decorate his new apartment. He later began helping Schindler trade on Kraków's wartime black market. In 1941, he married Ludmila "Mila" Lewison, with whom he later had two children. Mila, like Pfefferberg, would become a survivor of the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp and a '' Schindlerjude.'' Through this connection to Schindler, Pfefferberg was employed in Schindler's factory near the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp outside Kraków. This enabled him to survive the extermination of 3 million Polish Jews, during which his parents, sister, brother-in-law and many other relatives were murdered. Pfefferberg described Schindler as "a modern Noah," who was able to save a number of Kraków Jews from deportation to the nearby extermination camp at

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

. Those he saved became known as '' Schindlerjuden'' or "Schindler's Jews". He and his wife were moved with Schindler and many others to a camp at Brünnlitz due to their presence on the famous "Schindler's list". During that time, he acquired skill as a

welder In a broad sense, a welder is anyone, amateur or professional, who uses welding equipment, perhaps especially one who uses such equipment fairly often. In a narrower sense, a welder is a tradesperson who specializes in fusing materials together ...

. The Jews at Brünnlitz were liberated on May 9, 1945, by the Red Army.

Life after World War II

After the war, the Pfefferbergs first settled in Budapest, then in Munich where he organized a school for refugee children. In 1948, he emigrated to the United States, where he intermittently went by the name Leopold Page. He and his wife settled in Los Angeles in 1950, eventually opening a leather goods business in Beverly Hills. In the United States he used the name Leopold Page, although in later years he apparently reverted to Pfefferberg. He tried on a number of occasions to interest the screenwriters and film-makers he met through his business in a film based on the story of Schindler and his actions in saving Polish Jews from the Nazis, arranging several interviews with Schindler for American television. Schindler's death in 1974 seemed to end any possibility of a film. In 1980, when Thomas Keneally went into Pfefferberg's shop to ask about the price of briefcases, Pfefferberg learned that Keneally was a novelist and showed him his extensive files on Schindler. Keneally was interested, and Pfefferberg became an advisor for the book, accompanying Keneally to Poland where they visited Kraków and the sites associated with the Schindler story. Keneally dedicated ''Schindler's Ark'' to Pfefferberg: "who by zeal and persistence caused this book to be written." Pfefferberg explained the reasons behind his efforts to have the Schindler story told as:

Schindler gave me my life, and I tried to give him immortality.

After the publication of ''Schindler's Ark'' in 1982, Pfefferberg worked to persuade

to film Keneally's book, using his acquaintance with Spielberg's mother to gain access. Pfefferberg claimed to have called Spielberg's office every week for 11 years. When in 1992 Spielberg agreed to make the film, Pfefferberg worked as an advisor, again making the trip to Poland to show Spielberg the sites; he appears in the film's epilogue and is listed in the end credits as a consultant, under the name Leopold Page. Pfefferberg and his wife were Spielberg's guests on the night ''Schindler's List'' won seven Academy Awards. In his acceptance speech for best director that night, Spielberg thanked "a survivor named Poldek Pfefferberg ... I owe him such a debt. He has carried the story of Oskar Schindler to all of us." Pfefferberg was a founder of the Oskar Schindler Humanities Foundation, which recognises acts by individuals and organizations, regardless of race or nationality. He remarked on the Foundation:

Only when the foundation is a reality will I say I have fulfilled my obligation. Because when I am no longer here, when the Schindler Jews are not here, the foundation will still go on.

Pfefferberg died on March 9, 2001, aged 87, in Beverly Hills.Tom Tugend
"Survivor who spread word of Schindler's list dies at 87."
''

Jewish Telegraphic Agency The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) is an international news agency and wire service, founded in 1917, serving Jewish community newspapers and media around the world as well as non-Jewish press, with about 70 syndication clients listed on its web ...

''. 16 March 2001. Retrieved 9 September 2006.

References

External links

The Oscar Schindler Story
* Retrieved 8 September 2006.
BBC news report "''Schindler's List found in Sydney''"

'' The Guardian''. 18 June 2004. * ttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/schindler.html Oskar Schindlerat

Jewish Virtual Library 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""Th ...