Forced to work as the personal stenographer and translator for Amon Göth, the sadistic commandant of the Płaszów concentration camp, Mietek Pemper, the learned 23-year-old Jewish-Polish prisoner, quickly realized that he could use this unwanted position to familiarize himself with the inner workings of the Nazi bureaucracy. Thereby he managed to discover secret plans to eliminate the entire camp population by the end of 1943.
Oskar Schindler’s brave effort to save Jewish lives has since attained worldwide recognition. But almost a year before Schindler compiled his list, there occurred a no less courageous act of resistance. Mietek Pemper´s diversionary maneuver of the faked “production lists” saved the lives of thousands of his fellow inmates and the Płaszów camp was not eliminated. This clever act became the indispensable underpinning of Oskar Schindler’s famous list.