IN HIS MUCH-DISCUSSED CHAPTER “The Gray Zone” from The Drowned and the Saved, Primo Levi recounts the disturbing story of the morally corrupt Judenrat leader of the Lodz ghetto, Chaim Rumkowski, whose willing collaboration with the Nazis nonetheless failed to save him from the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Levi tells us that a certain Hans Biebow, the German chief administrator of the ghetto, whom Levi describes as a “shady German industrialist” (GZ 65), wrote a letter on Rumkowski's behalf that secured him “special treatment” upon his deportation to Auschwitz. The bitter irony is that the Judenrat leader was clearly unaware of the Nazis’ euphemistic use of the term. The anecdote has a remarkable parallel to Schindler's List. When Oskar Schindler's savvy accountant Itzhak Stern faces deportation to Auschwitz, Schindler—himself “a shady German industrialist” who, much like Biebow, “was interested in profiting from his contracts” (GZ 66)—likewise offers to write a letter on Stern's behalf that would secure him “special treatment.”