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Amon Goeth
Poldek Pfefferberg is a young Jewish man from Cracow and one of Oskar Schindler’s most trusted companions. According to author Thomas Keneally, Pfefferberg is also one of the driving forces who helped get Schindler’s List written in the first place. A confident 27-year-old when he first meets Schindler, Pfefferberg shows remarkable ingenuity, which he frequently uses to get himself out of trouble. After being captured by Nazis, he bluffs his way out of captivity by presenting an important-looking forged document. When Pfefferberg sees Oskar Schindler visiting his mother, Mina Pfefferberg, he nearly decides to shoot Oskar. Fortunately, he holds back, and when he finally has a chance to talk with Schindler, the two find they have a lot in common. Pfefferberg becomes Schindler’s black market runner, able to procure just about anything Schindler needs. When things take a turn for the worst and the ghetto in Cracow is liquidated, Pfefferberg is one of the last alive inside. He loses contact with his wife, Mila, and is apprehended in the street by Amon Goeth himself. Though Goeth has an opportunity to kill Pfefferberg, he spares him when Pfefferberg salutes and greets him (which amuses Goeth). Pfefferberg is almost overlooked for Schindler’s list but manages to make the cut after forming an unusual alliance with a cruel SS officer named Hans Schreiber. Pfefferberg is again separated from his wife when the female Schindler Jews are sent to Auschwitz. Ultimately, however, the Pfefferbergs make it out alive, a testament to how much luck and ingenuity were needed to survive as a Jew in Nazi-occupied territory. Long after the hanging of Amon Goeth, Pfefferberg continues to be haunted by Goeth in his dreams.
Leopold (Poldek) Pfefferberg Quotes in Schindler’s List
The Schindler’s List quotes below are all either spoken by Leopold (Poldek) Pfefferberg or refer to Leopold (Poldek) Pfefferberg. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 3 Quotes
Within two minutes the men were chatting like friends. The pistol in Pfefferberg’s belt had now been relegated to the status of armament for some future, remote emergency. There was no doubt that Mrs. Pfefferberg was going to do the Schindler apartment, no expense spared, and when that was settled, Schindler mentioned that Leopold Pfefferberg might like to come around to the apartment to discuss other business. “There is the possibility that you can advise me on acquiring local merchandise,” Herr Schindler said. “For example, your very elegant blue shirt . . . I don’t know where to begin to look for that kind of thing myself.” His ingenuousness was a ploy, but Pfefferberg appreciated it. “The stores, as you know, are empty,” murmured Oskar like a hint.
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Chapter 37 Quotes
To call either of them a speech, however, is to demean their effect. what Oskar was instinctively attempting was to adjust reality, to alter the self-image of both the prisoners and the SS. Long before, with pertinacious certainty, he’d told a group of shift workers, Edith Liebgold among them, that they would last the war. He’d flourished the same gift for prophecy when he faced the women from Auschwitz, on their morning of arrival the previous November, and told them, “you’re safe now; you’re with me.” It can’t be ignored that in another age and condition, the Herr Direktor could have become a demagogue of the style of Huey Long of Louisiana or John Lang of Australia, whose gift was to convince the listeners that they and he were bonded together to avert by a whisker all the evil devised by other men.
Oskar’s birthday speech was delivered in German at night on the workshop floor to the assembled prisoners. An SS detachment had to be brought in to guard a gathering of that size, and the German civilian personnel were present as well. As Oskar began to speak, Poldek Pfefferberg felt the hairs on his lice stand to attention. He looked around at the mute faces of Schoenbrun and Fuchs, and of the SS men with their automatics. They will kill this man, he thought. And then everything will fall apart.
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Leopold (Poldek) Pfefferberg Character Timeline in Schindler’s List
The timeline below shows where the character Leopold (Poldek) Pfefferberg appears in Schindler’s List. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Prologue
...Schindler, however, isn’t looking forward to the dinner. A prisoner at the camp named Poldek Pfefferberg is also headed to the villa that evening. Goeth frequently abuses his Jewish maid, Helen...
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Pfefferberg and an orderly named Lisiek are upstairs cleaning Goeth’s bathroom. Madritsch and Titsch drink coffee...
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Schindler heads out, and in the bathroom, Pfefferberg and Lisiek overhear Goeth bringing a girl to his bedroom earlier than expected. They try...
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Chapter 3
Leopold (Poldek) Pfefferberg is another Jew from Cracow who meets with Schindler that fall. He is a wounded...
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One cold night in November, Pfefferberg comes close to killing Schindler. He sees Schindler in his suit with a Nazi Party...
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Pfefferberg can see that Pfefferberg’s mother doesn’t know what to do, so he enters the room...
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Schindler asks if Pfefferberg might be able to help him procure some local goods, suggesting Pfefferberg’s blue shirt as...
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Chapter 6
...still embarrassed that her father hasn’t paid her dowry, but Schindler doesn’t mind. One day, Pfefferberg comes in with a black-market rug and asks if Emilie if he can see “Frau...
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Chapter 10
Early on, however, these suspicions are not as prevalent. Leopold Pfefferberg is one member, enlisting in part because he hopes that bringing order to the ghetto...
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As the OD becomes increasingly controlled by the SS (and therefore more repressive), Pfefferberg starts looking for a way out. He finds a doctor named Alexander Biberstein and asks...
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Chapter 13
Between running errands for Schindler, Pfefferberg works as a tutor to the children of Symche Spira, chief of one of the...
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Pfefferberg rushes back to the labor office and charms the receptionists, promising that he has plenty...
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Chapter 21
Pfefferberg and his wife, Mila, are in their home waiting to be caught by the SS...
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Pfefferberg returns to his home and finds that Mila is gone and the whole place is...
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Pfefferberg approaches some SS men confidently as if he’s a soldier, saying he received an order...
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Chapter 31
Pfefferberg hears about the list from an SS officer named Hans Schreiber, who has a nasty...
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Chapter 32
...Goldberg’s interference, Schindler mostly gets the people he wanted to come with him to Brinnlitz. Pfefferberg, accidentally overlooked by Schindler and unable to provide a diamond for Goldberg, gets some unlikely...
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Chapter 35
...cool. Schindler reacts with indignation, and some inspectors even feel sympathy toward him. Stern and Pfefferberg claim Schindler sometimes bought shells from other manufacturers to present as his own at inspections....
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Chapter 36
...temperatures, Schindler orders for the two cars of Goleszów prisoners to be taken to Brinnlitz. Pfefferberg gets welding gear to cut open the cattle car doors. Inside, they find a gruesome...
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Chapter 37
...life. SS officers and German civilian personnel are present for the speech, and some, like Pfefferberg, worry that they’ll shoot Schindler for what he’s saying. Though Schindler seems oblivious, he is...
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Chapter 38
...gate asking for gasoline. Though some prisoners are in favor of shooting them on sight, Pfefferberg suggests that it will be safest to just supply the gasoline. The men take the...
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