German behind Schindler's List passes away

Mietek Pempe, the man who typed up German industrialist Oskar Schindler's list, the paperwork that helped save 1,200 Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust, has died in Germany. He was 91.

According to The Daily Mail, Pempe died in Augsburg, Germany, on Tuesday and was buried in the city's Jewish cemetery yesterday.

Augsburg mayor Kurt Gribl said that Pempe, who moved to the city in 1958 where he worked as a management consultant, was an advocate of intercultural understanding.

"With Mietek Pempe, the city has lost an important builder of bridges between the Jewish and Christian religions and a contributor to reconciliation," Gribl said in a statement.

The city had awarded him a civic medal in 2003 and made him an honorary citizen in 2007.

Born Mieczyslaw Pemper in 1920 in the Polish city of Krakow to a Jewish family, he was imprisoned at the Nazi concentration camp Plaszow, where he worked as the personal typist for its commandant Amon Leopold Goth.

He later linked up with Schindler and, at great risk to his own life, supplied him with a typed list of the names of over 1,000 fellow prisoners to be recruited for work that was 'decisive for the Nazi war effort'.

He persuaded Schindler to switch from making pots and pans to anti-tank grenades.

Schindler is credited with saving the lives of some 1,200 Jews through such work schemes as well as bribes paid to German officers.