Skip to main content
USF Libraries Exhibits

Working for Oskar Schindler

Salomon Pila, Holocaust Survivor

I was with Schindler from 19—I was there for about a year, for a year. Then they sent me from—we was working for Schindler in the factory, and then they found my brother—there was two, three shifts, actually, and they found me and my brother; we was together, just about a little further away. So he worked for one machine and I worked for another machine. And then he catched a nap, and (inaudible) come to Schindler: he was a big Nazi from Prussia, come down to check how the people doing. Then Schindler come around with him, because he didn’t know if—Schindler would have known that he come then; he always used to know and he let us know before, so all people should work, should be all right. But that time, then, nobody know it. He didn’t know it, either.

So then Schindler—he was sleeping there, and he says, “Schick rauf”; that means they’re going to send him to Płaszów. Then he gave my—Schindler gave him a couple things, then he said, “Er hatte genug”; that means he’s got enough. And then a few days later they call him so he could send them—oh, the guys. There was, I think, about twenty, twenty-five people; I don’t remember exactly how many. He said, “Schick rauf”; that means he should send them back to Płaszów.

So then, me, not. I was not on the list, as my brother was. And then I went myself to Schindler and I begged him. I says, “You should let my brother here because—there was five brothers together; we was only two left.” And then he says he cannot do. I talked to myself to Schindler, said (inaudible)—you know, in German, if can be with me together. Then he says no; then three times he said, (inaudible) in German. Three times he asked me, and then I says, “Yes. If he don’t stay, I want to be with him together.” So they sent us to Płaszów.