Thaindian News

The Jewish museum at Sydney and the descendants of the survivors saved by Oskar Schindler are irate because a carbon copy of Schindler’s famous list was sold to the State Library of New South Wales. The list contains the names of over 800 Jews, compiled by the German industrialist, and has been described by the library as “one of the most powerful documents of the 20th century”. It was given to Australian writer Thomas Keneally in 1980 by a Leopold Pfefferberg, a survivor named on the Schindler list, then living in

Los Angeles. Keneally based his Booker-prize winning book “Schindler’s Ark” on the list, and it was later made into Steven Spielberg’s Academy award winning movie “Schindler’s List”

The State Library of New South Wales said earlier that it had obtained Keneally’s manuscript material for an undisclosed sum from a dealer in 1996. The document had been lying in the library archives for 13 years till a researcher found it. The Sydney Jewish Museum and the descendants of the survivors saved by Oskar Schindler said they were disappointed at the fact that the list was sold to the library. John Landerer, president at the museum said to a Jewish website, “I can only express disappointment that he [Keneally] chose to dispose of such a precious document this way.”

Jake Sellinger, whose parents were listed as survivors on the list said, “It’s hard to believe that he would sell this precious document without having any care or concern as to where it would end up.”

The list is originally a thirteen-page document containing the names of Jews saved from the Nazis by the German industrialist Oskar Schindler, and will be an exhibit at the museum from Tuesday.