Thomas Michael Keneally, AO (born 7 October 1935) is an Australian novelist, playwright and author of non-fiction. He is best known for writing Schindler's Ark, the Booker Prize-winning novel of 1982 which was inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor. The book would later be adapted to Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

Life and career[link]

Born in Sydney, Keneally was educated at St Patrick's College, Strathfield. Subsequently, a writing prize there has been named after him. He entered St Patrick's Seminary, Manly to train as a Catholic priest. Although he was ordained as a deacon while at the seminary he left without being ordained to the priesthood. He worked as a Sydney schoolteacher before his success as a novelist and was a lecturer at the University of New England (1968–70). He has also written screenplays, memoirs and non-fiction books.

Keneally was known as "Mick" until 1964 but began using the name Thomas when he started publishing, after advice from his publisher to use what was really his first name.^[1] He is most famous for his Schindler's Ark (1982) (later republished as Schindler's List), which won the Booker Prize and is the basis of the film Schindler's List. Many of his novels are reworkings of historical material, although modern in their psychology and style.

Keneally has also acted in a handful of films. He had a small role in The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (based on his novel) and played Father Marshall in the Fred Schepisi movie, The Devil's Playground (1976) (not to be confused with a similarly titled documentary by Lucy Walker about the Amish period called rumspringa).

In 1983 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO).^[2] He is an Australian Living Treasure.

He is a strong advocate of an Australian republic, meaning the severing of all ties with the British monarchy, and published a book on the subject Our Republic in 1993. Several of his Republican essays appear on the web site of the Australian Republican Movement.

Keneally is a keen supporter of rugby league football,^[3] in particular the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles club of the NRL. in 2004 he gave the sixth annual Tom Brock Lecture.^[4] He made an appearance in the 2007 rugby league drama film The Final Winter.^[5]

In March 2009, the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, gave an autographed copy of Keneally's biography Lincoln to President Barack Obama as a state gift.^[6]

Most recently^[when?] Keneally featured as a writer in the critically acclaimed Australian drama Our Sunburnt Country.

Keneally's nephew Ben is married to the former Premier of New South Wales, Kristina Keneally.

The Tom Keneally Centre opened in August 2011 at the Sydney Mechanics' School of Arts, housing Keneally's books and memorabilia. The site is used for book launches, readings and writing classes.^[7]

Awards[link]

[edit] Schindler's Ark

Keneally wrote the Booker Prize-winning novel in 1982, inspired by the efforts of Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor. In 1980 Pfefferberg met Keneally in his shop, and learning that he was a novelist, showed him his extensive files on Oskar Schindler. Keneally was interested, and Pfefferberg became an advisor for the book, accompanying Keneally to Poland where they visited Kraków and the sites associated with the Schindler story. Keneally dedicated Schindler's Ark to Pfefferberg: "who by zeal and persistence caused this book to be written." He said in an interview in 2007 that what attracted him to Oskar Schindler was that "it was the fact that you couldn't say where opportunism ended and altruism began. And I like the subversive fact that the spirit breatheth where it will. That is, that good will emerged from the most unlikely places".^[1] The book was later made into a film titled Schindler's List (1993) directed by Steven Spielberg, earning the director his first Best Director Oscar. Keneally's meeting with Pfefferberg and their research tours are detailed in Searching for Schindler: A Memoir (2007). Some of the Pfefferberg documents that inspired Keneally are now housed in the State Library of New South Wales in Sydney.^[8] In 1996 the State Library purchased this material from a private collector.^[9] In April 2009 a copy of the list (including 801 names) was found in the documentation Thomas Keneally used as research material for his novel.

Bibliography[link]

Novels[link]

• The Place at Whitton (1964)
• The Fear (1965), rewritten in (1989) as By the Line
• Bring Larks and Heroes (1967), winner of the Miles Franklin Award, set in an unidentified British penal colony
• Three Cheers for the Paraclete (1968), winner of the Miles Franklin Award, comic novel of a doubting priest
• The Survivor (1969), a survivor looks back on a disastrous Arctic expedition
• A Dutiful Daughter (1971), Keneally's personal favourite
• The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972), also filmed. Written through the eyes of an exploited Aborigine who explodes in rage. Based on an actual incident. Keneally has said he would not now presume to write in the voice of an Aborigine, but would have written the story as seen by a white character.
• Blood Red, Sister Rose (1974), a novel based loosely on the life of Joan of Arc
• Gossip from the Forest (1975), tells of the negotiation of the armistice that ended World War I
• Season in Purgatory (1976), love among Tito's partisans in World War II
• Ned Kelly and the City of the Bees (1978), a book for children
• A Victim of the Aurora (1978), a detective story set on an Antarctic expedition
• Passenger (1979)
• Confederates (1979), based on Stonewall Jackson's army
• The Cut-Rate Kingdom (1980), Australia at war in 1942
• Schindler's Ark (1982), winner of the Booker Prize, later released and filmed as Schindler's List
• A Family Madness (1985)
• The Playmaker (1987), prisoners perform a play in Australia in the 18th Century
• Act of Grace (1985), (under the pseudonym William Coyle) Published as Firestorm in the US
• By the Line (1989), working-class families face World War II in Sydney
• Towards Asmara (1989), the conflict in Eritrea
• Flying Hero Class (1991), Palestinians hijack an aeroplane carrying an Aboriginal folk dance troupe
• Chief of Staff (1991), (under the pseudonym William Coyle)
• Woman of the Inner Sea (1993), Keneally retells a story once told him by a young woman that haunted his imagination
• Jacko (1993), madness and television
• A River Town (1995)
• Bettany's Book (2000)
• An Angel in Australia (2000), also published as Office of Innocence
• The Tyrant's Novel (2003), an Australian immigration detainee tells his story
• The Widow and Her Hero (2007), the effect of war on those left behind
• The People's Train (2009), a dissident escapes from Russia to Australia in 1911, only to return to fight in the revolution

Non-fiction[link]

• Moses the Law-Giver (1975)
• Outback (1983)
• Australia: Beyond the Dreamtime (1987)
• The Place Where Souls are Born: A Journey to the Southwest (1992)
• Now and in Time to Be: Ireland and the Irish (1992)
• Memoirs from a Young Republic (1993)
• The Utility Player: The Des Hasler Story (1993) Footballer Des Hasler
• Our Republic (1995)
• Homebush Boy: A Memoir (1995), autobiography
• The Great Shame (1998)
• American Scoundrel: The Life of the Notorious Civil War General Dan Sickles (2002), biography of Daniel Sickles
• Lincoln (2003), biography of Abraham Lincoln
• A Commonwealth of Thieves: The Improbable Birth of Australia (2005)
• Searching for Schindler: A Memoir (2007)
• Australians: Origins to Eureka (2009)
• Three Famines: Starvation and Politics (2011)
• Australians: Eureka to the Diggers (2011)

Drama[link]

• Halloran's Little Boat (1968)
• Childermas (1968)
• An Awful Rose (1972)
• Bullie's House (1981)

Media[link]

• "Irish Escape". Secrets of the Dead. New York City. 2008-06-04. PBS. Thirteen. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/episodes/irish-escape/watch-the-full-episode/128/. 

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Australian Biography website, including video interviews (and transcripts)

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Thomas Keneally

• Tom Keneally at Random House Australia
• Life and Works of Thomas Keneally
• Australian Republican Movement web site. Search for "Keneally".
• Wonders of the Ross Sea Thomas Keneally recalls his voyages to Antarctica
• 1983, 1989, 1991, 1993 RealAudio interviews with Thomas Keneally at Wired for Books.org by Don Swaim
• Radio interview with Michael Silverblatt
• Part One of Booknotes interview with Keneally on The Great Shame and the Triumph of the Irish in the English-Speaking World, 2 January 2000.
  • Part Two of Booknotes interview with Keneally on The Great Shame, 9 January 2000.

Oskar Schindler (28 April 1908 – 9 October 1974) was an ethnic German industrialist born in Moravia. He is credited with saving over 1,100^[1][2] Jews during the Holocaust by employing them in his enamelware and ammunitions factories, which were located in what is now Poland and the Czech Republic respectively.^[3] He is the subject of the novel Schindler's Ark, and the film based on it, Schindler's List.^[4]

Early life and career[link]

Schindler was born on 28 April 1908 into a Sudeten German family in Zwittau, Moravia, Austria-Hungary. His parents, Hans Schindler and Franziska Luser, were divorced when he was 27. Oskar was always very close to his younger sister, Elfriede. Schindler was brought up within the Roman Catholic Church. Although he never formally renounced his religion, Oskar was never more than an indifferent Catholic.^[1] After school he worked as a commercial salesman.

On 6 March 1928, Schindler married Emilie Pelzl (1907–2001), daughter of a wealthy Sudeten German farmer from Maletein. A pious Catholic, Emilie had received most of her education in a nearby monastery.^[5] During the Great Depression, Oskar changed jobs several times. He also tried starting various businesses, but always went bankrupt. He joined the separatist Sudeten German Party in 1935. Though officially a citizen of Czechoslovakia, Schindler also became a spy for the Abwehr, then commanded by Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.^[1] He was convicted of espionage and imprisoned by the Czechoslovakian government in July 1938, but after the Munich Agreement, he was released as a political prisoner. In 1939 Schindler joined the Nazi Party. One source contends that he also continued to work for Canaris and the Abwehr, paving the way for the Wehrmacht's invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939.^[6]

World War II[link]

Part of a series on
The Holocaust
Part of: German history and Jewish history
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v t e

As an opportunistic businessman, Schindler was one of many who sought to profit from the German invasion of Poland in 1939. He gained ownership from a bankruptcy court of an idle enamelware factory in Kraków,^[3] named Pierwsza Małopolska Fabryka Naczyń Emaliowanych i Wyrobów Blaszanych "Rekord",^[7] which he renamed Deutsche Emaillewaren-Fabrik or DEF (location).^[8] With the help of his German-speaking Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern,^[3] Schindler obtained around 1,000 Jewish forced labourers to work there.^[1]

Schindler soon adapted his lifestyle to his income. He became a well-respected guest at Nazi SS elite parties, having easy chats with high-ranking SS officers, often for his benefit.^[8] Initially Schindler may have been motivated by money, as Jewish labour cost less, but later he began shielding his workers without regard for cost. He would, for instance, claim that certain unskilled workers were essential to the factory.^[3]

While witnessing a 1943 raid on the Kraków Ghetto, where soldiers were used to round up the inhabitants for shipment to the concentration camp at Płaszów, Schindler was appalled by the murder of many of the Jews who had been working for him.^[8] He was a very persuasive individual, and after the raid, increasingly used all of his skills to protect his Schindlerjuden ("Schindler's Jews"), as they came to be called. Schindler went out of his way to take care of the Jews who worked at DEF, often calling on his legendary charm and ingratiating manner to help his workers get out of difficult situations.^[8] Once, says author Eric Silver in The Book of the Just, "Two Gestapo men came to his office and demanded that he hand over a family of five who had bought forged Polish identity papers. 'Three hours after they walked in,' Schindler said, 'two drunk Gestapo men reeled out of my office without their prisoners and without the incriminating documents they had demanded'".^[9] The special status of his factory ("business essential to the war effort") became the decisive factor for Schindler's efforts to support his Jewish workers. Whenever "Schindler Jews" were threatened with deportation, he claimed exemptions for them. Wives, children, and even handicapped persons were shown to be necessary mechanics and metalworkers.^[3]

In the factory itself, Jewish workers were treated civilly, with none of the "shouting, abuse and random killing" that was going on in the Płaszów camp next-door. The Jews were able to pray in a minyan daily, and gathered at night to learn Chumash and exchange words of Torah and stories of Gedolim. At the close of Shabbat, the workers gathered for Shalosh Seudos and sang zemirot (Shabbat-table songs), said words of Torah, and told stories of tzaddikim.^[10]

Schindler's factory at Kraków in 2006
50°02′51″N 19°57′42″E / 50.047397°N 19.961799°E / 50.047397; 19.961799 (Site of Schindler's factory at Kraków, Poland)

Schindler's factory at Brněnec in 2004
49°37′40″N 16°31′25″E / 49.627752°N 16.523733°E / 49.627752; 16.523733 (Site of Schindler's factory at Brněnec, Czech Republic)

Schindler was arrested three times on suspicion of black market activities and complicity in embezzlement, as well as breaking the Nuremberg Laws by kissing a Jewish girl. Amon Göth, the commandant of the Płaszów camp, and other SS guards used Jewish property (such as money, jewellery, and works of art) for themselves, although according to law, it belonged to the Reich. Schindler arranged the sale of such items on the black market. None of his arrests led to a trial, primarily because he bribed government officials to avoid further investigation.^[1][3]

As the Red Army drew nearer to Auschwitz concentration camp and the other easternmost concentration camps, the SS began evacuating the remaining prisoners westward. Amon Göth's personal secretary, Mietek Pemper, alerted Schindler to the Nazis' plans to close all factories not directly involved with the war effort, including Schindler's enamelware facility.^[11] Pemper also persuaded and encouraged Schindler to switch production from enamelware to anti-tank grenades in an effort to save Schindler's Jewish workers.^[11][12] Tipped off to the factory closure, Schindler persuaded the SS officials to allow him to move his 1,200 Jewish workers to Brünnlitz (Czech: Brněnec), in the German-speaking Sudetenland, thus sparing them from certain death in the gas chambers. Mietek Pemper further aided Schindler's efforts by compiling and typing the list of 1,200 Jews—1,000 of Schindler's workers and 200 other inmates—who were sent to Brünnlitz in October 1944.^[11][12]

In Brünnlitz, Schindler gained another former Jewish factory, which was scheduled to produce hand grenades and parts for V2 rockets. It is unclear how much armament was actually produced there; Schindler and some of the workers claimed in the immediate post-war years that there had been no production that would have been useful to the German war effort, and even that some or all of the output had been deliberately faulty product.

After the war[link]

Schindler and his wife fled to Austria's U.S. zone, escaping prosecution by dressing in prison clothes and carrying a letter testifying to their heroic actions.^[13] By the end of the war, Schindler had spent his entire fortune on bribes and black-market purchases of supplies for his workers. Virtually destitute, he moved briefly to Regensburg and later Munich, but did not prosper in postwar Germany. In fact, he was reduced to receiving assistance from Jewish organizations. Eventually, Schindler emigrated to Argentina in 1948, where he went bankrupt. He left his wife Emilie in 1957 and returned to Germany in 1958, where he had a series of unsuccessful business ventures.^[3] Schindler settled down in a small apartment at Am Hauptbahnhof Nr. 4 in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany and tried again – with help from a Jewish organization – to establish a cement factory. This, too, went bankrupt in 1961. His business partners cancelled their partnership. In 1968 he began receiving a small pension from the West German government.

Commemorative plaque at Goettingstrasse 30, Hildesheim

In 1971, Schindler moved to live with friends at Goettingstrasse Nr. 30 in Hildesheim. Due to a heart complaint he was taken to the Saint Bernward Hospital in Hildesheim on 12 September 1974, where he died on 9 October 1974, at the age of 66. At the time of his death, he was surrounded by friends and family.^{[14][not in citation given]} He died penniless;^[15] the costs for his stay in the hospital were paid from social welfare of the city of Hildesheim.^[16][17]

Schindler's grave

Schindler wanted to be buried in Jerusalem, as he said, "My children are here".^[15] After a Requiem Mass, Schindler was buried at the Catholic Franciscans' cemetery^[18] on Mount Zion, the only member of the Nazi Party to be honoured in this way.^[3] A sign at the entrance to the cemetery directs visitors "To Oskar Schindler's Grave".

Side view of Schindler's grave, piled with small stones left by Jewish visitors

Schindler's grave is located on the mountainside below Zion Gate and the Old City walls. Stones placed on top of the grave are a sign of gratitude from Jewish visitors, according to Jewish tradition, although Schindler himself was not Jewish. On his grave, the Hebrew inscription reads: "Righteous among the Nations", an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis. The German inscription reads: "The Unforgettable Lifesaver of 1200 Persecuted Jews"

No one knows what Schindler's motives were. He was quoted as saying "I knew the people who worked for me... When you know people, you have to behave towards them like human beings."^[19]

The writer Herbert Steinhouse, who interviewed Schindler in 1948 at the behest of some of the surviving Schindlerjuden (Schindler's Jews), wrote:

"Oskar Schindler's exceptional deeds stemmed from just that elementary sense of decency and humanity that our sophisticated age seldom sincerely believes in. A repentant opportunist saw the light and rebelled against the sadism and vile criminality all around him. The inference may be disappointingly simple, especially for all amateur psychoanalysts who would prefer the deeper and more mysterious motive that may, if it is true, still lie unprobed and unappreciated. But an hour with Oskar Schindler encourages belief in the simple answer."^[3]

Legacy[link]

[edit] Schindler's List (Schindler's Ark)

Schindler's story, retold by Holocaust survivor Poldek Pfefferberg, was the basis for Thomas Keneally's book Schindler's Ark (the novel was published in America as Schindler's List), which was adapted into the 1993 movie Schindler's List by Steven Spielberg. In the film, he is played by Liam Neeson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal. The film won seven Oscars, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. The prominence of Spielberg's film introduced Schindler into popular culture. As the film is the sole source of most people's knowledge of Schindler, he is generally perceived much as Spielberg's film depicts him: as a man who was instinctively driven by profit-driven amorality, but who at some point made a silent but conscious decision that preserving the lives of his Jewish employees was imperative, even if requiring massive payments to induce Nazis to turn a blind eye.

Other film treatments have included a 1983 British television documentary produced by Thames Television, narrated by Sir Dirk Bogarde entitled, Schindler: The Documentary (released in the US in 1994 as Schindler: The Real Story),^[20] and a 1998 A&E Biography special, Oskar Schindler: The Man Behind the List.^[21]

Schindler's suitcase[link]

In late 1999 a suitcase belonging to Schindler was discovered, containing over 7,000 photographs and documents, including the list of Schindler's Jewish workers. The document, on his enamelware factory's letterhead, had been provided to the SS stating that the named workers were "essential" employees. Friends of Schindler found the suitcase in the attic of a house in Hildesheim, where he had been staying at the time of his death. The friends took the suitcase to Stuttgart, where its discovery was reported by a newspaper, the Stuttgarter Zeitung. The contents of the suitcase, including the list of the names of those he had saved and the text of his farewell speech before leaving his Jewish workers in 1945, are now at the Holocaust museum of Yad Vashem in Israel.^[22]

Schindler's enamel factory in 2009

List of Schindlerjuden[link]

In early April 2009, a second list was discovered at the State Library of New South Wales, Australia by workers combing through boxes of materials collected by author Thomas Keneally. The 13-page document, yellow and fragile, was filed between research notes and original newspaper clippings. This list, given to Keneally in 1980 by Leopold Pfefferberg, who was listed as worker number 173, differs slightly from the other list, but is nonetheless considered to be genuine and authentic. It is believed that several lists were made during the war as the protected population changed. This particular list, dated 18 April 1945, was given to Keneally by Pfefferberg when he was persuading Keneally to write Schindler's story. In the last months of the war, German Nazi camps stepped up their extermination efforts. This list is believed to have saved the lives of 801 people from death in the gas chambers. It was this list, taken with the surrounding events of the time, that inspired Keneally to write his novel.^[23]

See also[link]

• List of individuals and groups assisting Jews during the Holocaust
• Righteous among the Nations
• Yad Vashem Righteous among the Nations
• List of Righteous among the Nations by country
• Raoul Wallenberg
• Necdet Kent
• Abdol Hossein Sardari
• Chiune Sugihara
• John Rabe
• Leo Rosner
• Ángel Sanz Briz

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Oskar Schindler

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oskar Schindler

• The Schindler Story
• Biggest online gallery of images of Oskar Schindler's Factory in Kraków
• Oskar Schindler's Factory info and tours
• Oskar and Emilie Schindler – Righteous Among the Nations – Yad Vashem
• Oskar Schindler's list at Auschwitz.dk
• Aerial Evidence for Schindler's List
• Holocaust Rescuers Bibliography
• Schindler's List (film) bibliography via UC Berkeley
• Pictures of Oskar Schindler's suitcase
• Find-A-Grave profile for Oskar Schindler
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum – Oskar Schindler
• Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Helen Jonas from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Interview with Mimi Reinhard, Schindler's secretary