Posted: 4/14/2009 1:50:00 PM
Source: This article originally appeared in The Jewish Press on April 14, 2009.
Schindler's List Unearthed in Australian Library
Sydney's Jewish Museum and descendents of survivors saved by Oskar Schindler are angry that a carbon copy of his famous list was sold to the State Library of New South Wales. The German industrialist's list of more than 800 Jews - described by the library "as one of the most powerful documents of the 20th century" - was given to Australian author Thomas Keneally in 1980 by Leopold Pfefferberg, a Schindler survivor living in Los Angeles. It prompted Keneally to write his Booker Prize-winning work, SCHINDLER'S ARK, which spawned Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning film, "Schindler's List." The library said it paid an undisclosed sum to a dealer for Keneally's manuscript material in 1996. But the document had been languishing in the bowels of the library for 13 years until it was discovered by a researcher. The Sydney Jewish Museum and others related to the Schindler story were disappointed the list was sold to the library, museum president John Landerer told J-wire, a local Jewish Website.
