The Schindler's List Typist

The man who typed up Schindler's list and helped to save the lives of 1,200 Jews during the holocaust has died in Germany. Mietek Pemper was 91.

Born Mieczyslaw Pemper in 1920 in the Polish city of Krakow to a Jewish family, he was imprisoned at the Nazi concentration camp Plaszow, where he worked as the personal typist for its feared commandant Amon Göth.

While there he linked up with German industrialist Schindler whom Pemper, at great risk to his own life, supplied with a typed list of the names of more than 1,000 fellow prisoners to be recruited for work that was "decisive for the Nazi war effort."

Schindler, an ethnic German from Czechoslovakia and a member of the Nazi party who first sought to profit from Germany's invasion of Poland, is credited with saving the lives of some 1,200 Jews through such work schemes as well as bribes paid to German officers.

Oskar Schindler died in 1974. When Steven Spielberg made the 1993 film Schindler's List, Pemper worked as a consultant. That was the first time he talked about his experiences. He was portrayed in the movie by Ben Kingsley, although the character had a different name. Pemper will be buried today in the the Jewish Cemetery in Augsberg, Germany, where he lived since 1958. City flags are being flown at half-staff today in Pemper's honor. Link -via Fark