278 SCHINDLER’S LIST
of 1,098 Polish Jews (801 men and 297 women) saved by Oskar Schindler (1908–
1974), a Roman Catholic, a member of the Nazi Party, and war profiteer in Kraków,
Poland, who paradoxically risked his life to save Jews during World War II. Pfef-
ferberg made it his life’s mission to honor Schindler’s memory. In 1963 he told
Schindler’s story to the wife of film producer Marvin Gosch, obtained a meeting
with Gosch, and eventually sold the film rights to MGM for $50,000. Delbert Mann
was slated to direct and Howard Koch (Casablanca) was contracted to write the
script but somehow the deal fell through. In October 1980, during a layover while
on a book tour, Australian writer Thomas Keneally (The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith)
stopped in to Pfefferberg’s store to buy a briefcase and Pfefferberg regaled him with
Schindler’s remarkable story, also showing him materials from two filing cabinets
full of information he had collected about Schindler. Intrigued, Keneally spent the
next two years researching the story, which also involved interviewing 50 Schindler-
juden (“Schindler’s Jews”). The resulting historical novel, Schindler’s Ark (1982),
became a Booker Prize– winning bestseller. Sent a review of the book by Music
Corporation of Amer i ca president Sidney Sheinberg, director Steven Spielberg
expressed interest, whereupon Universal Pictures bought the film rights for
$500,000. Spielberg met with Pfefferberg in the spring of 1983 and told him he
would start filming in 10 years, when he felt he was mature enough to make a
movie about the Holocaust. True to his word, Spielberg let almost a de cade elapse
before he undertook his Schindler movie, during which time he hired Keneally to
adapt his own book to the screen. In the meantime Spielberg directed a string ofOskar Schindler (Liam Neeson, left) intervenes to save a Jewish family from the Nazis in
Steven Spielberg’s celebrated Holocaust epic, Schindler’s List (1993). (Universal/Photofest)