
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, December 19, 1993                   TAG: 9312190077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: E-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
DATELINE: WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.                                LENGTH: Medium

JEWISH COUPLE RECALLS BEING SAVED BY A LIST

During the Holocaust in 1944, Helen Beck saw a grave that had been dug by Nazi soldiers. It was meant for her.

"It had enough room for 1,000 people. Out of curiosity, I went out to see it one day," Helen said about the trench behind the factory where she and other Jewish prisoners worked.

"It made me numb."

But thanks to a Nazi businessman named Oskar Schindler, she and her husband outlived the grave.

Kuba and Helen Beck of Delray Beach, Fla., were two of the names on Schindler's List, a roster of about 1,100 Jews who were saved by Schindler from near-certain "liquidation" in Nazi-run death camps in Poland during World War II. The story is receiving attention thanks to the release on Wednesday of the movie "Schindler's List," directed by Steven Spielberg. Many movie critics have called the film a top candidate for an Academy Award.

"There are no words to describe the thanks and true feelings of compassion we have for Schindler," Helen, 68, said. "He was a man with a human heart. The rest [of the Nazis] were beasts."

Schindler joined the Nazi party, but his business interests led him to Poland when Germany invaded it. Jewish labor was cheap there, so he took over a factory. But he soon sympathized with the Jews and decided to try to save them after seeing the Nazi practices, Helen said.

Schindler managed to gain Nazi permission to use Jews for labor by opening up a munitions factory that would make parts for German V-2 missiles. By making German missiles and black-market items, Kuba said, Schindler became rich, satisfied the Nazi party, and protected his Jewish workers from the SS.

In the summer of 1944, Schindler was forced to disassemble his factory because of Russian advances in the war. Kuba was sent to Gross-Rosen, and Helen was sent to Auschwitz. But Schindler wanted to re-establish the factory in Czechoslovakia, so he compiled a list of the people who had already worked for him.

He wanted the same workers because they had already been trained, and he used his influence to win their release. Thanks to Schindler, Kuba and Helen were spared.

by CNB