Australia, April 13 – Oskar Schindler was popularized by the 1993 biographical film by Steven Spielberg. It tells the story of a German businessman who saved the lives of 1,200 of Jews during the holocaust. It is based on the Thomas Keneally novel entitled Schindler’s Ark.

The list, in fact, exists. For the last 13 years, an Australian library did not know that they were in possession of such. It was found in the archive of the State Library of New South Wales. It includes 801 names and nationalities of factory workers on 13 pages of yellowed carbon paper. It was discovered in the archives almost by chance. It was discovered between German newspaper clippings and the Keneally’s research notes.

The same list was used by the author of the novel. “It’s the list Tom used when writing ‘Schindler’s Ark’ and that really brought Schindler’s actions to the attention of the world,” said the library’s co-curator Olwen Pryke.

Keneally was given a copy of the list by a holocaust survivor. Leopold Pfefferberg, number 173 on Schindler’s list, urged the writer to pen Schindler’s story. Keneally published the novel in 1982 and won the Booker Prize for it.

According to Pryke neither the library nor the book dealer, from whom it acquired the six boxes of material in 1996, realised the list was among the documents.

“This list was hurriedly typed on 18 April 1945, in the closing days of the Second World War, and it saved 801 men from the gas chambers,” said Pryke. “It’s an incredibly moving piece of history.”

Only a few copies of the original lists survived. One is housed in Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem.

Source:
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