Amon Goth Born in Vienna Amon Goeth joined a Nazi youth group at seventeen, moved to a nationalist paramilitary group

at nineteen, and, in 1930, when he was twenty-two, joined the then outlawed Austrian Nazi Party. He was designated No. 510,964, and in the same year he joined the S.S. Amon Goeth fled to Germany when he was pursued by Austrian authorities for crimes involving explosives. His superior officers admired his devotion, gave him glowing personal evaluations and transferred him to the S.S. A son Amon Goeth was a model officer, and his reward was a posting, in August, 1942, with Aktion Reinhard, the S.S. operation to liquidate more than two million Polish Jews.
In 1943 on Yom Kippur, an important holiday of the Jewish year, Goeth and his SS-men took 50 Jews from the barracks and shot them.

At Plaszow Amon Goeth passed his mornings by using his high-powered, scoped rifle to shoot at children playing in the camp. Rena Finder, one of Schindler's Jews then 14 years old, later remembered Goeth as " .... the most vicious and sadistic man ...". Amon Goeth was arrested in the autumn of 1944 in connection with an investigation of corruption and black market activities in the camps, the same investigation that brought about the execution of Karl Koch and Hermann Florstedt. Goeth was also suspected of embezzlement, but before he could be put on trial the war ended. At the trial at the Supreme National Tribunal of Poland, Cracow, 27th - 31st August and 2nd - 5th September, 1946, Goeth was found guilty and convicted of the murders of tens of thousands of people. (1) Amon Goeth as commandant of the forced labour camp at Plaszow (Cracow) from 11th February, 1943, till 13th September, 1944, caused the death of about 8,000 inmates by ordering a large number of them to be exterminated.

(2) As a SS-Sturmfhrer Amon Goeth carried out the final closing down of the Cracow ghetto. This liquidation action which began on 13th March, 1943, deprived of freedom about 10,000 people who had been interned in the camp of Plaszow, and caused the death of about 2,000.

(3) As a SS-Hauptsturmfhrer Amon Goeth carried out on 3rd September, 1943, the closing down of the Tarnow ghetto. As a result of this action an unknown number of people perished, having been killed on the spot in Tarnow. Others died through asphyxiation during transport by rail or were exterminated in other camps, in particular at Auschwitz.

(4) Between September, 1943, and 3rd February, 1944, Amon Goeth closed down the forced labour

camp at Szebnie near Jaslo by ordering the inmates to be murdered on the spot or deported to other camps, thus causing the death of several thousand persons. Goth accepted responsibilities for his actions, appealed for mercy from the court but was hanged in September 1946 not far from his camp.