Itzhak Stern was a Polish Jewish accountant and Holocaust survivor from Kraków. During the Second World War, he helped Oskar Schindler understand the Nazi labor system and assisted efforts to protect Jewish workers. Stern later settled in Israel and became an important witness to Schindler's rescue activities.
Background
Stern was born on January 25, 1901, in Kraków, then part of Austria-Hungary and later a major center of Jewish life in southern Poland. He developed his career in accounting and became involved in Jewish communal affairs before the German occupation.
Before the war, Stern was associated with Jewish political and community organizations in western Poland. In 1939, the German invasion and occupation transformed Kraków's Jewish community through expropriation, forced administration, ghettoization, and deportation. Stern's professional knowledge brought him into contact with businesses placed under German trusteeship and ultimately with Oskar Schindler.
Career
Stern worked as an accountant for J. C. Buchheister and Company in Kraków from 1924. After the German occupation, the business was placed under trusteeship, and Stern continued to serve as its chief accountant. Oskar Schindler met him on November 18, 1939, through Josef Aue, who was connected with the German security apparatus and had taken control of the business.
Stern advised Schindler about the purchase or lease of the bankrupt enamelware company Rekord and explained that employing Jewish forced labor could give Schindler access to a cheaper workforce while also offering some Jews protection from deportation. The advice contributed to Schindler's establishment of the Deutsche Emaillewarenfabrik in Kraków, although Stern was not the factory's regular accountant; that role was held by Abraham Bankier.
After the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto, Stern was imprisoned in the Płaszów labor and concentration camp and was forced to work in the camp office. He and his brother Natan worked alongside other Jewish prisoners, including Mietek Pemper, and Stern supplied Schindler with information about camp conditions. Schindler used money and contacts to improve conditions for some prisoners and to preserve access to Jewish workers.
In 1944, when Płaszów was being closed, Schindler arranged the transfer of Jewish workers to his armaments factory at Brünnlitz in occupied Czechoslovakia. Stern was transferred through Gross-Rosen to Brünnlitz, where he became one of the Jewish workers' leaders and worked directly with Schindler. The surviving transport documents later became associated with the historical account of Schindler's Jews, although the film's depiction of Stern typing a single list at Schindler's dictation is a dramatization and does not accurately reproduce the complex history of the surviving lists.
After liberation, Stern moved first to Paris and later emigrated to Israel. He supported public recognition of Schindler's rescue work, corresponded with Schindler, and provided testimony and written accounts that became important sources for reconstructing the history of Schindler's Jewish workers.
Achievements
Stern helped Oskar Schindler understand the German occupation economy and the labor system imposed on Jews, contributing to Schindler's decision to employ Jewish workers and protect them from deportation.
While imprisoned in Płaszów, Stern supplied information about camp conditions and worked with other Jewish prisoners to support the survival of Jewish workers transferred to Schindler's Brünnlitz factory.
After the war, Stern advocated recognition of Schindler's rescue activities and provided testimony and written accounts that became important evidence for reconstructing the history of Schindler's Jews.
Religion
Stern was Jewish and belonged to Kraków's Jewish community, where Jewish religious, communal, and cultural institutions formed an important part of civic life before the Second World War. His knowledge of Jewish affairs and religious texts was noted by contemporaries.
During the Nazi occupation, Jewish identity became the basis for systematic persecution, forced labor, deportation, and mass murder. Stern's wartime activities unfolded within this setting, as he used his administrative position and contacts to help Jewish workers obtain employment and protection. His later life in Israel remained connected to the memory of the Jewish communities destroyed during the Holocaust.
Membership
Stern held documented leadership and participatory roles in Jewish communal and Zionist organizations before and during the Second World War. These organizations represented Jewish community administration, political advocacy, and efforts to organize Jewish life in a period of increasing antisemitic discrimination and persecution.
Vice president.
Jewish Agency for Western Poland
,
Poland
Member.
Zionist Central Committee
,
Poland
Personality
Stern was described as knowledgeable about business, Jewish communal affairs, and religious matters. His documented wartime conduct shows persistence in using administrative knowledge and professional contacts to help Jewish workers under Nazi persecution.
Connections
Stern's professional and wartime relationship with Oskar Schindler developed from business dealings into a sustained association centered on the protection of Jewish workers. After the war, Stern continued to support Schindler's recognition and remained in contact with him until Stern's death.
Stern married Sophia Backenrot in 1945 after the end of the war. His brother Natan Stern also survived the Holocaust and was transferred with him to Schindler's Brünnlitz factory. Natan later appeared among the Schindlerjuden commemorated in connection with the 1993 film Schindler's List.
Collegue :
Oskar Schindler
Industrialist who met Stern in Kraków in 1939 and later employed Jewish workers at factories in Kraków and Brünnlitz. Their relationship continued after the war through correspondence and Stern's efforts to document Schindler's rescue activities.
Wife:
Sophia Backenrot
Stern married Backenrot in 1945 after the end of the Second World War.
Brother:
Natan Stern
Survived the Holocaust and was transferred with Itzhak Stern to Schindler's Brünnlitz factory.
References
Oskar Schindler
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum article describing Schindler's wartime rescue activities and the assistance of Jewish prisoners including Itzhak Stern.
'Schindler' Stepping-stone to Life
Historical account distinguishing the real wartime roles of Itzhak Stern, Abraham Bankier, and other participants from the dramatized events in Schindler's List.
Companion Resource to Schindler's List
Educational biographical resource describing Stern's prewar communal roles, imprisonment in Kraków and Płaszów, transfer to Brünnlitz, and postwar emigration to Israel.
