Report: Original Schindler’s List to be sold on eBay for $3 million
Published July 19, 2013
(JTA) – A list of names of 801 Jews rescued by German industrialist Oskar Schindler are set to be auctioned off on eBay.
The New York Post on Friday reported that the 14 pages containing the original Schindler’s List will be auctioned off Friday by California collectors Gary Zimet and Eric Gazin, who set the reserve price at $3 million but are hoping to sell it for $5 million.
The date April 18, 1945 is written in pencil on the first page. Only male names appear on the German-language list, as well as each person’s date of birth and profession.
The list was named for Oskar Schindler, a German businessman credited with saving more than 1,000 Jews from the Nazis by deeming them essential workers for his enamel works factories.
His story reached worldwide attention after the release of the 1993 feature film “Schindler’s List.” Directed by Steven Spielberg, the movie was based on the Booker Prize-winning novel “Schindler’s Ark,” which Australian novelist Thomas Keneally published in 1982.
Of the seven original versions of the list, only four are known to still exist — including two at Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Memorial Museum, and one at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, the Post reported.
The sellers said the copy being offered for sale on eBay is located in Israel, according to the paper.
“It is extremely rare that a document of this historical significance is put on the market,” Zimet said. “Many of the survivors on this list and their descendants moved to the United States, and there are names on this list which will sound very familiar to New Yorkers.”