By: Shira Hanau – Jewish Telegraphic Agency; jta.org
Mimi Reinhard had studied literature and languages as an undergraduate before World War II. But it was a course in shorthand that saved her life.
Reinhard was imprisoned at the Plaszow concentration camp outside of Krakow when she was chosen, due to her excellent German and shorthand skills, to work as a secretary instead of being sent to perform hard labor. That assignment would save her life when she went on to type up the list of Jews to be saved by Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist later named a “righteous among the gentiles” for his efforts to save the approximately 1,200 Jews who worked for him.
When Reinhard typed up that list, her own name would be on it.
Reinhard died Tuesday at 107 in Israel, where she moved in 2007 to be near her son, Sacha Weitman, then a professor at Tel Aviv University.
cont’d…