“Schindler’s List”, one of the greatest historical relics, is for sale

One of only four surviving versions of Schindler’s List is on sale for $1.8 millionnearly 80 years after saving the lives of 1,098 Jews.

German businessman Oskar Schindler used them in his munitions and enamel factory during World War II, convincing the Nazis that they were too important to kill.

He bribed SS officers he could not convince, spending his entire fortune on cash and black market goods so he could protect his workers.

Schindler’s story was immortalized in the 1993 film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Liam Neeson (as Oskar), which won seven Oscars and revived interest in the Holocaust around the world.

A total of seven lists were created. when their factory was moved from Krakow, now in Poland, to the Brünnlitz labor camp, now in the Czech Republic.

Now, collectors Eric Gazin and Gary Zimet are selling the list on behalf of an anonymous client in Israel, who purchased it in 2011.

“You cannot imagine a more poignant and historic relic of the Second World War. “This is the opportunity of a lifetime to acquire an object of truly incredible magnitude,” she said. Zimet, who wrote on the Moments in Time website, where it was put up for sale.

The listing had been listed for sale twice previously, once on eBay in 2013 for $3 million and in 2017 for $2.4 million, but never attracted a single bid.

Gazin and Zimet hope that the reduced price will finally entice a wealthy collector to get their hands on this extremely rare document.

The origin of the list

The first Schindler’s Lists were created by Marcel Goldberg in October 1944. one with 700 men and another with 300 women, who had to be moved to the new factory.

Schindler was arrested at that time by the Nazis for one of the many bribes he had paid to SS officers, but he had ordered lists to be drawn up.

These early lists no longer exist, but a second version compiled by Poldek Pfefferberg survives. once Schindler’s Jews arrived at the factory on October 21, 1944.

Other lists were created over time as more names were added or had to be rewritten and given to Nazi officers in the chaotic final days of the war.

The version for sale was written on April 18, 1945, by Itzhak Stern, a Jewish recluse who served as Schindler’s accountant and was played by Ben Kingsley in the landmark film.

The 14-page document names 801 men, along with their dates and places of birth, and It was the penultimate of the seven lists drawn up.

Stern, who died in 1969, gave it to his nephew and from there it passed into the hands of collectors until it was purchased by the current owner.

A carbon copy of the same list, secured around the same time, was discovered in April 2009 at the Library of New South Wales in Sydney.

This copy of the list was used by Australian author Thomas Keneally to write Schindler’s Ark, the 1982 historical fiction novel on which the film is based.

Pfefferberg, listed as worker number 173, gave Keneally the copy of the list in 1980 and convinced him to tell Schindler’s story for the first time.

Until the book’s publication, Schindler’s heroism had been largely lost to time, outside of the memories of the Jews he saved and their families.

Library staff found the 13 fragile, yellowed pages of research notes and German newspaper clippings in one of six boxes owned by Keneally that the library purchased in 1996 without knowing they were there.

Another version of the list, drawn up by the administrators of the Brünnlitz Nazi camp, together with the list of 291 women, is preserved at the Yad Vashem Memorial in Jerusalem.

The fourth version of the list, drawn up on April 1, 1945, is located at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC.

Who was Schindler

Schindler was a German spy who gathered intelligence in Poland and Czechoslovakia before the war and became a wealthy businessman.

As a card-carrying member of the Nazi Party, as all successful Germans were supposed to be, he did not start out by trying to help the Jews.

Initially, the Polish Jew Abraham Bankier convinced him to use Jewish labor because he would not have to pay for it.

As time passed, Schindler began to care for the Jews who worked for him and became disgusted by the mass murder carried out by the Nazis.

He had a camp built within the factory grounds where his workforce was adequately fed, treated well, and protected from extermination.

Schindler kept them safe by bribing SS officers with cash and luxury items purchased on the black market, and the demands became increasingly expensive.

By the end of the war he had spent all his fortune and after a few years he moved to Argentina and tried his hand at poultry farming, but failed.

He returned to West Germany and, after his new businesses failed, was dependent on financial support from the Schindlerjuden, the Jews he had saved.

Schindler died of liver failure on October 9, 1974 and was buried on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. Israel declared him Righteous Among the Nations, an award for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.