New Delhi: Mimi Reinhard, the woman who drew up the famous list for German industrialist Oskar Schindler and saved 1,200 Jewish lives in World War II, has died at the age of 107.
Reinhard, who was a Jewish herself, died on 8 April in Israel.
Reinhard was born Carmen Koppel in Austria’s Vienna in 1915, and moved to Krakow, Poland, before the outbreak of World War II. But after the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, she and her family were sent to the concentration camp in Poland’s Plaszow, where she met Schindler and became his personal secretary because of her skills in shorthand.
The typist, who was hired by Schindler himself, was responsible for drawing up the handwritten list of Jews who were to be transferred to Schindler’s ammunition factory. These men and women would have otherwise been sent to conceptration camps. Reinhard worked for Schindler till 1945.
During a 2008 interview with Yad Vashem Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust — Reinhard had said, “I didn’t know it was such an important thing, that list,” referring to the famous list.
“First of all, I got the list of those who were with Schindler already in Krakow, in his factory. I had to put them on the list,” she said, adding she had later put her own and two of her friends’ names in the list as well.
Schindler was a Nazi German industrialist credited with saving the lives of thousands of Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions business. He bribed the Nazi authorities to let him keep them as workers in his factories in order to save as many lives as he could.
The account was made into a film called, “Schindler’s List” in 1993 by acclaimed director Steven Spielberg, who also co-produced it. Irish actor Liam Neeson played the role of Oskar Schindler in the movie.
The heart-wrenching historical drama is often ranked among the best films ever made. The film won seven Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director, seven Baftas and three Golden Globes.