Poldek Pfefferberg

Life

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

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. 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 skills as a welder. The Jews at Brünnlitz were liberated on May 9, 1945, by the Red Army. eventually opening a leather goods business in Beverly Hills. Pfefferberg worked to persuade Steven Spielberg 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. His character appears in the movie, depicted by actor Jonathan Sagall. 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,