My Grandfather Would Have Shot Me: A Black Woman Discovers Her Family's Nazi Past by Jennifer Teege, Nikola Sellmair Page B
Authors: Jennifer Teege, Nikola Sellmair
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came here, but I’ll never come back.
I wish someone had made my grandmother come and see this place. Surely, here, she would have had to open her eyes at last.
■ ■ ■
In the early 1980s, London filmmaker Jon Blair was working on a documentary about Oskar Schindler in agreement with Steven Spielberg. In doing so, Blair carried out much of the research that laid the foundation for the feature film Schindler’s List . He talked with Schindler’s widow Emilie and many survivors. Even 65-year-old Ruth Irene Goeth agreed to an interview, despite being very ill; she was suffering from pulmonary emphysema and was at times dependent on an oxygen tank. Ruth Irene Goeth expected Blair to come alone and to ask her about Oskar Schindler. Instead he rolled up with an entire film crew and asked questions about Amon Goeth. It was a long interview.
The video shows a well-groomed and made-up woman, her jet-black hair piled up high on her head, yet she is ravaged by her disease and constantly gasping for air. She speaks English and chooses her words carefully.
And she still defends Amon Goeth: “He was no brutal murderer. No more than the others. He was like everybody else in the SS. He killed a few Jews, yes, but not many. The camp was no fun park, of course.”
She claims that, before the camp, Amon Goeth never had any dealings with Jews. She omits any mention of the bloody ghetto liquidations Amon Goeth organized before and during his time as commandant at Płaszów.
After the war, Ruth Irene Goeth was still in contact with Oskar Schindler, sporadically and on friendly terms. In the interview with Blair, she says that Schindler treated the Jews well, but mostly because they were useful to him. Schindler, Goeth, she herself—“we were all good Nazis,” she says, “we couldn’t be anything else.” There had been no alternative, she claims; nobody liked the Jews—that was how they had been brought up.
When asked about herself, Ruth Irene Goeth explains: “I always felt that it was all wrong, but I wasn’t the one who made the rules of those times. Whenever Amon and I had an argument, I would say that I was leaving; I didn’t want to have to witness any more of this. But then the maids would come and say to me, please don’t leave us, you always help us, what would we do without you?”
She describes herself as a guardian angel to those girls: “The whole camp was saying, ‘God has sent us an angel.’ And that angel was me.”
When Blair observes that the only reason Ruth Irene Goeth had to protect the maids in the first place was because Amon Goeth would threaten and beat them, she counters that most people weren’t treating their staff particularly well at the time.
In the end, it wasn’t the maids’ pleading that made her stay, it was her love for Amon Goeth. Ruth Irene says: “He was a very handsome man, well liked by everybody. He was obliging towards his friends, and he was charming—just not towards the prisoners, no, not at all.” Amon Goeth had closer dealings with some inmates than others, and some he actually liked, she contends. But, she adds, there were so many Jews in the camp, it was impossible to know each and every one of them.
When pressed by Jon Blair, Ruth Irene Goeth admits that there were indeed old people and children in the camp, yet claims that she “never saw” the children. But then she recalls the children being deported, as already described to her daughter Monika—presumably when the trucks left Płaszów for Auschwitz. “Only once did I see that they were taking children away on a truck, and I was very sad; it tugged at my heartstrings. But a friend of mine said, ‘They’re only Jews.’”
When questioned by Blair whether she has any regrets about those times, she answers: “Yes, yes, honestly. But I never hurt anyone. Nobody can prove that I ever did anything wicked.”
She claims that she never went inside the camp, never went near any of the barracks. She stayed
I wish someone had made my grandmother come and see this place. Surely, here, she would have had to open her eyes at last.
■ ■ ■
In the early 1980s, London filmmaker Jon Blair was working on a documentary about Oskar Schindler in agreement with Steven Spielberg. In doing so, Blair carried out much of the research that laid the foundation for the feature film Schindler’s List . He talked with Schindler’s widow Emilie and many survivors. Even 65-year-old Ruth Irene Goeth agreed to an interview, despite being very ill; she was suffering from pulmonary emphysema and was at times dependent on an oxygen tank. Ruth Irene Goeth expected Blair to come alone and to ask her about Oskar Schindler. Instead he rolled up with an entire film crew and asked questions about Amon Goeth. It was a long interview.
The video shows a well-groomed and made-up woman, her jet-black hair piled up high on her head, yet she is ravaged by her disease and constantly gasping for air. She speaks English and chooses her words carefully.
And she still defends Amon Goeth: “He was no brutal murderer. No more than the others. He was like everybody else in the SS. He killed a few Jews, yes, but not many. The camp was no fun park, of course.”
She claims that, before the camp, Amon Goeth never had any dealings with Jews. She omits any mention of the bloody ghetto liquidations Amon Goeth organized before and during his time as commandant at Płaszów.
After the war, Ruth Irene Goeth was still in contact with Oskar Schindler, sporadically and on friendly terms. In the interview with Blair, she says that Schindler treated the Jews well, but mostly because they were useful to him. Schindler, Goeth, she herself—“we were all good Nazis,” she says, “we couldn’t be anything else.” There had been no alternative, she claims; nobody liked the Jews—that was how they had been brought up.
When asked about herself, Ruth Irene Goeth explains: “I always felt that it was all wrong, but I wasn’t the one who made the rules of those times. Whenever Amon and I had an argument, I would say that I was leaving; I didn’t want to have to witness any more of this. But then the maids would come and say to me, please don’t leave us, you always help us, what would we do without you?”
She describes herself as a guardian angel to those girls: “The whole camp was saying, ‘God has sent us an angel.’ And that angel was me.”
When Blair observes that the only reason Ruth Irene Goeth had to protect the maids in the first place was because Amon Goeth would threaten and beat them, she counters that most people weren’t treating their staff particularly well at the time.
In the end, it wasn’t the maids’ pleading that made her stay, it was her love for Amon Goeth. Ruth Irene says: “He was a very handsome man, well liked by everybody. He was obliging towards his friends, and he was charming—just not towards the prisoners, no, not at all.” Amon Goeth had closer dealings with some inmates than others, and some he actually liked, she contends. But, she adds, there were so many Jews in the camp, it was impossible to know each and every one of them.
When pressed by Jon Blair, Ruth Irene Goeth admits that there were indeed old people and children in the camp, yet claims that she “never saw” the children. But then she recalls the children being deported, as already described to her daughter Monika—presumably when the trucks left Płaszów for Auschwitz. “Only once did I see that they were taking children away on a truck, and I was very sad; it tugged at my heartstrings. But a friend of mine said, ‘They’re only Jews.’”
When questioned by Blair whether she has any regrets about those times, she answers: “Yes, yes, honestly. But I never hurt anyone. Nobody can prove that I ever did anything wicked.”
She claims that she never went inside the camp, never went near any of the barracks. She stayed