Oskar Schindler is a vainglorious and greedy German businessman who becomes unlikely humanitarian amid the barbaric Nazi reign when he feels compelled to turn his factory into a refuge for Jews.Based on the true story of Oskar Schindler who managed to save about 1100 Jews from being gassed at the Auschwitz concentration camp.TOM KENEALLY PROLOGUE Autumn, 1943 In Polands deepest autumn, a tall young man in an expensive overcoat, double-breasted dinner jacket beneath it andin the lapel of the dinner jacketa large ornamental gold-on-black-enamel Hakenkreuz (swastika) emerged from a fashionable apartment building in Straszewskiego Street, on the edge of the ancient center of Cracow, and saw his chauffeur waiting with fuming breath by the open door of an enormous and, even in this blackened world, lustrous Adler limousine.BOOK JACKET INFORMATION The acclaimed No.
Steven Spielberg A stunning novel based on the true story of how German war profiteer and prison camp Direktor Oskar Schindler came to save more Jews from the gas chambers than any other single person during World War II. In this milestone of Holocaust literature, Thomas Keneally uses the actual testimony of the SchindlerjudenSchindlers Jews to brilliantly portray the courage and cunning of a good man in the midst of unspeakable evil. BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE PLACE AT WHITTON THE FEAR BRING LARKS AND HEROES THREE CHEERS FOR THE PARACLETE THE SURVIVOR A DUTIFUL DAUGHTER THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH BLOOD RED, SISTER ROSE GOSSIP FROM THE FOREST SEASON IN PURGATORY A VICTIM OF THE AURORA PASSENGER CONFEDERATES A FAMILY MADNESS THE PLAYMAKER TO ASMARA FLYING HERO CLASS THE PLACE WHERE SOULS ARE BORN WOMAN OF THE INNER SEA CHILDRENS BOOKS NED KELLY AND THE CITY OF BEES THOMAS KENEALLY was born in 1935 and was educated in Sydney, Australia. In addition to Schindlers List, which won the Booker Prize and the L.a. Times Book Award for fiction, his books include To Asmara, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, and Flying Hero Class, which was shortlisted for the Sunday Express Book of the Year Award. He presently teaches in the graduate writing program at the University of California at Irvine, where he holds a Distinguished Professorship. He is also Chairman of the Australian Republican Movement, which seeks to end Australias constitutional connections with Great Britain. TO THE MEMORY OF OSKAR SCHINDLER, AND TO LEOPOLD PFEFFERBERG, WHO BY ZEAL AND PERSISTENCE CAUSED THIS BOOK TO BE WRITTEN SCHINDLERS LIST AUTHORS NOTE In 1980 I visited a luggage store in Beverly Hills, California, and inquired the prices of briefcases. The store belonged to Leopold Pfefferberg, a Schindler survivor. It was beneath Pfefferbergs shelves of imported Italian leather goods that I first heard of Oskar Schindler, the German bon vivant, speculator, charmer, and sign of contradiction, and of his salvage of a cross section of a condemned race during those years now known by the generic name Holocaust. It is enriched by a visit, in the company of Leopold Pfefferberg, to locations that prominently figure in the book: Cracow, Oskars adopted city; email protected ow, the scene of Amon Goeths foul labor camp; Lipowa Street, Zablocie, where Oskars factory still stands; Auschwitz-Birkenau, from which Oskar extracted his women prisoners. But the narration depends also on documentary and other information supplied by those few wartime associates of Oskars who can still be reached, as well as by the large body of his postwar friends. Many of the plentiful testimonies regarding Oskar deposited by Schindler Jews at Yad Vashem, The Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority, further enriched the record, as did written testimonies from private sources and a body of Schindler papers and letters, some supplied by Yad Vashem, some by Oskars friends. To use the texture and devices of a novel to tell a true story is a course that has frequently been followed in modern writing. It is the one I chose to follow hereboth because the novelists craft is the only one I can lay claim to, and because the novels techniques seem suited for a character of such ambiguity and magnitude as Oskar. I have attempted, however, to avoid all fiction, since fiction would debase the record, and to distinguish between reality and the myths which are likely to attach themselves to a man of Oskars stature. It has sometimes been necessary to make reasonable constructs of conversations of which Oskar and others have left only the briefest record. But most exchanges and conversations, and all events, are based on the detailed recollections of the Schindlerjuden (schindler Jews), of Schindler himself, and of other witnesses to Oskars acts of outrageous rescue. I would like to thank first three Schindler survivorsLeopold Pfefferberg, Justice Moshe Bejski of the Israeli Supreme Court, and Mieczyslaw Pemperwho not only passed on their memories of Oskar to the author and gave him certain documents which have contributed to the accuracy of the narrative, but also read the early draft of the book and suggested corrections. Many others, whether Schindler survivors or Oskars postwar associates, gave interviews and generously contributed information through letters and documents. In my home city, Mr. Mrs. E. Korn not only gave of their memories of Oskar but were a constant support. At Yad Vashem, Dr. Josef Kermisz, Dr. Shmuel Krakowski, Vera Prausnitz, Chana Abells, and Hadassah Modlinger provided generous access to the testimonies of Schindler survivors and to video and photographic material. Lastly, I would like to honor the efforts which the late Mr. Martin Gosch expended on bringing the name of Oskar Schindler to the worlds notice, and to signify my thanks to his widow, Mrs. Lucille Gaynes, for her cooperation with this project. Through the assistance of all these people, Oskar Schindlers astonishing history appears for the first time in extended form.
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