A New York State judge has allowed a copy of Schindler’s original list to be auctioned off for over $2 million. The seller says – and the buyer apparently agrees – that the list, 13 pages long, is one of several original copies.
It is a list of names of Jews that Oskar Schindler employed, fictitiously or not, in German-occupied countries during World War II. He submitted the list to the Nazis, thus ensuring that the Jews would be saved.
Ultimately, Schindler was credited with saving nearly 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories, located in what are now Poland and the Czech Republic, respectively.
New York State Supreme Court Justice Louis York ruled in a Manhattan court that memorabilia dealer Gary Zimet may sell the list, overruling an attempt by an heiress of Schindler's widow to block the sale. The plaintiff, Marta Rosenberg, claimed that the list was a fake.
Schindler's successful efforts to save Jews from Nazi clutches was the subject of Steven Spielberg's Academy Awards-winning film “Schindler's List'' in 1993, which in turn was based on the 1982 book ''Schindler's Ark'' by Thomas Keneally.