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Oskar Schindler, centre, with Holocaust survivors in 1962. AP/Press Association Images

The messy legal battle for who actually owns Oskar Schindler's lists

Forty years after his death, a court case is playing out in Jerusalem over Oskar Schindler’s belongings.

FORTY YEARS AFTER his death, a legal battle is playing out in Jerusalem over documents belonging to Oskar Schindler including personal copies of the lists of Jewish people he saved from the Holocaust.

The case, which is expected to go to court next month, sheds unusual light on Schindler’s personal life after he saved some 1,200 Jews from the Nazis during World War II, and the battles over his estate.

It also raises questions about the ownership rights of documents that once belonged to important figures like Schindler — whose personal papers have in the past turned up at auction.

The case has been brought by Erika Rosenberg, an Argentinian woman, who is suing Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust museum over a suitcase containing thousands of Schindler’s documents.

Rosenberg claims ownership of the documents by virtue of being the heir of the German industrialist’s late wife, Emilie.

The suitcase and the documents have been held since 1999 by Yad Vashem, which insists they never belonged to Emilie Schindler but were passed on by Oskar Schindler to a third party before his death.

GERMANY SCHINDLER LIST Oskar Schindler pictured in 1968 AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

During World War II, Schindler, an ethnic German from then-Czechoslovakia and a member of the Nazi party, persuaded German officers — through bribes and other means — to let him employ Jews at his factory, saving them from the death camps.

His story captured public attention decades later with Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Oscar-winning movie “Schindler’s List”.

After the war, Schindler emigrated with his wife to Argentina, but in 1958 returned to Germany alone and died there in 1974. She remained his legal heir.

The suitcase containing Schindler’s personal documents and pictures — as well as a number of copies of the original lists of Jews he saved — eventually turned up in the home of a friend, the late Annemarie Staehr.

Sales of Schindler papers 

In her lawsuit, Rosenberg describes Staehr as Schindler’s “lover” and claims she took it from his home after he died.

But Yad Vashem’s legal team says their relationship was platonic and that Schindler had given her the suitcase and its contents as a gift.

POLAND SCHINDLER MUSEUM The original 'Emalia' factory in Krakow where Schindler shielded more than 1,000 Jewish people AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

According to the plaintiff, the suitcase was found at Staehr’s house after she died and her children handed it over to a German newspaper and the German national archives in 1997.

When news of the discovery became public, Emilie Schindler took legal action in Germany to retrieve the suitcase and its contents.

But when a judge turned up to search the premises of the newspaper in 1999, he was told that they had already been sent to Yad Vashem, court documents show.

In 2001, Emilie Schindler returned to Germany where she died, childless.

In the last decade of her life, Emilie Schindler became close to Rosenberg, her biographer, and designated her as heir to her estate.

Yad Vashem claims that Rosenberg is a “serial suer” who is seeking to exploit Schindler’s memory for her personal gain.

Value

Documents related to Schindler have financial as well as historic value.

In 2013, the blueprints for an expansion of his wartime factory in Poland were sold for $63,426 (€59,000) and the same buyer paid $59,135 (€55,701) for a 1944 letter of introduction signed by Schindler.

Poland Schindlers Jews One of the people saved by Oskar Schindler at a ceremony in Poland in 2008. AP / Press Association Images AP / Press Association Images / Press Association Images

None of the original lists of Jews comprising the “Schindler lists” remain, but historians believe seven copies were made of them shortly after World War II.

Only one such copy is currently in private hands. Every so often unsuccessful efforts are made to sell that document, most recently in 2013 with a starting price of $3 million (€2.8 million).

 ’Belong in the public domain’ 

Naor Yair Maman, who represents Rosenberg, told AFP his client had tried to retrieve the documents informally for years, before finally resorting to legal action against Yad Vashem.

“I’ve no doubt that the issue of the ownership is very clear,” he told AFP.

Even if you believe that from the historical-academic perspective, it would be preferable that the documents remain in Yad Vashem, you have no right, whatsoever, to claim title to someone else’s property.

Rosenberg doesn’t say in the suit what she wants to do with the documents.

Yad Vashem is a national institution which is tasked with gathering, examining and researching materials pertaining to The Holocaust.

It is venerated within Israel and a mandatory stop on the itinerary of visiting dignitaries.

The museum says the disputed documents “belong in the public domain”.

Yad Vashem insists it is legally entitled to the documents and has not acted in an underhand manner, denying claims by Rosenberg’s legal team that it had “grabbed” the suitcase.

“Yad Vashem holds the documents lawfully and has acted the whole time openly and publicly,” it said in a statement to AFP, in which it expressed opposition to “trading in Holocaust-era documents”.

We will hold our debate with Rosenberg in court to ensure these documents do not reach private hands, of those who are not their legal owners and whose interests are unclear.

The Jerusalem court will hold a preliminary hearing on the case on April 15, after mediation between the sides failed.

- © AFP, 2015

Read: ‘British Schindler’ honoured for saving hundreds of children from Nazi death camps > 

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    Mute fiachra29
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    Mar 15th 2015, 11:24 AM

    Oskar Schindler did a great deed, but in this country I think a lot of us are unaware of our own homegrown hero from WW2 Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty. He was stationed in Rome during the war and saved 6500 Allied soldiers and Jews under his own initiative and with the help of a network of allies he recruited, his ability to evade German traps earned him the nickname the Scarlet Pimpernel. A 1983 TV film starring Gregory Peck called A Scarlet and the Black is the only major depiction of his actions, there’s also a statue of him in Killarney where he grew up.

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    Mute Irish Red
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    Mar 15th 2015, 11:58 AM

    Very interesting, must look him up. Maybe the journal could do a piece on him.

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    Mute Roxy
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    Mar 15th 2015, 1:19 PM

    I’m gone give that a watch thanks

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    Mute Jurgen Remak
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    Mar 15th 2015, 1:53 PM

    Thanks fiachra, I read of the man’s great deeds but didn’t realise there is a movie. Will watch.

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    Mute Mary Murphy
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    Mar 15th 2015, 5:01 PM

    #IrishRed the Journal is too busy making heroes out of our government

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    Mute Dermot Lane
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    Mar 15th 2015, 7:48 PM

    There are two books I know of about Hugh O Flaherty, one is The Vatican Pimpernel by Brian Fleming, it’s available on amazon. The other is more recent but I can’t remember the name or who wrote it. Very interesting story, he seems to have been a good man, humble and unassuming, who put his life and career at risk to help others, not just Jews but allied POWs who had escaped from camps.

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    Mute Derek McCarthy
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    Mar 15th 2015, 8:34 PM

    Great story. He had a group of exceptional people helping him

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    Mute Christine Paulette Roche
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    Mar 16th 2015, 9:37 AM

    I saw this film many years ago fiachra29, it was absolutely brilliant, A truly very brave man who saved many. .

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    Mute Chris Kirk
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    Mar 15th 2015, 10:45 AM

    Disgusting relatives fighting over scraps of paper they think might be worth something. Oscar Schindler should have either handed them over to the holocaust museum or burned them years ago.

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    Mute Caro A. Guillen
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    Mar 15th 2015, 12:05 PM

    Chris, I agree, what I find more strange is that she’s not even a relative. She’s a close friend of his widow.

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    Mute Paul Circle
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    Mar 15th 2015, 11:19 AM

    Do Israeli ever stop stealing what simply isn’t theirs.

    Israeli’s are a disgusting race getting away with stealing Palestian land for years.

    Never forget the slaughter they visited on Gaza a few weeks ago – more than 500 children slaughtered and the people of Gaza still living in squalor.

    Immediate sanctions should be imposed on parasite terr0rist Israel.

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    Mute Charles Rex
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    Mar 15th 2015, 11:27 AM

    Since when are Israelis a race? What would you prefer to say, you shrivelled moral relativist?

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    Mute Paul Circle
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    Mar 15th 2015, 11:52 AM

    Israeli’s are land thieves and terrorists – end of.

    Remember the Isish passports that they forged ?.

    Boycott everything israeli ,

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    Mute Jason
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    Mar 15th 2015, 12:10 PM

    I see that you use Facebook. Mark zuckerberg is Jewish. Maybe you should give it up too.

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    Mute Richard Powell
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    Mar 15th 2015, 1:38 PM

    But he’s not Israeli. I don’t get your comparison. It’s not Jewish people per say, that are killing Palestinians, it’s the Israeli governments policy that’s doing the damage. Not all Jewish people are Israeli, and not all Jewish people agree with that countries carry on in the Middle East.

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    Mute Maurice Dancer
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    Mar 15th 2015, 1:43 PM

    Jewish = Israeli? That’s a poor effort.

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    Mute Jason
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    Mar 15th 2015, 1:49 PM

    He’s American, who funds the Israeli army and provides it with iron dome and F16′s etc? Israeli army and defence cannot exist without American support, so boycotting American goods and services would be much more effective.

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    Mute Maurice Dancer
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    Mar 15th 2015, 1:51 PM

    That is quite the stretch Jason.

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    Mute Maurice Dancer
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    Mar 15th 2015, 2:14 PM

    Oh no the red thumbs are out. What a way to hurt my digital ego guys.

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    Mute danielplainview
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    Mar 15th 2015, 10:36 AM

    Great film

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    Mute Paul Devlin
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    Mar 15th 2015, 2:16 PM

    Look across the valley from Yad Vashem and you’ll see a psychiatric unit built on the ruins of Deir Yassin. Zionist forces murdered 250 Palestinian civilians there in 1948, blowing up whole families in their homes. They paraded truckloads of Palestinian men through Jerusalem before murdering them in a local quarry. The villagers had a peace pact with the nearest Jewish settlement but they were massacred ask the same. No memorials for them. No Spielberg movies. Nothing

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    Mute Charles Rex
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    Mar 15th 2015, 2:33 PM

    Innocent lives lost in Deir yassin were a tragedy. The 128 civilians killed in 2 subsequent reprisal attacks were also a tragedy. There have been questions asked of the number of people that died at DY. Unfortunately Jerusalem was besieged and people were starving. The only way to resupply was by a road that went through deir yassin. This village was being held by arab militias.

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    Mute ernest borgle
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    Mar 15th 2015, 10:32 AM

    Steven Spielberg

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    Mute Paul Devlin
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    Mar 15th 2015, 3:24 PM

    Firstly your ‘facts’ are hasbara lies. Secondly you’re a moral relativist, like everyone you condemn. Thirdly, have the guts to call mass murder what it is instead of claiming it was a necessary, though tragic, act.

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    Mute Charles Rex
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    Mar 15th 2015, 4:00 PM

    A charge of hasbara from a supporter of the IPSC. Jesus wept.

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