Schindler’s List remains one of the crowning achievements in Steven Spielberg’s career and was based on the true story of Oskar Schindler, a complex man who took it upon himself to save over a thousand Jews during the Holocaust. One of the real lists Schindler put together is hitting the auction block and being sold on eBay.
The New York Post reports that this copy is the only one to ever be available on the open market. California collectors Gary Zimet and Eric Gazin set the reserve price at $3 million and are hoping that it climbs to $5 million. The listing, available here, went live at 9 p.m. Eastern Thursday night and will be listed for 10 days. So far, there have been no bidders.
“We decided to sell the list on eBay because it has over 100 million worldwide members, and this is a global story,” Gazin, the president of AuctionCause.com, told the Post. “There are billionaires using the site, wealthy celebrities. We like the platform.”
Schindler was a businessman who hired Jews to work in his factories. He listed them all as essential workers, saving them from Nazi concentration camps. There were seven versions and four are known to survive. Two are on display at Israel’s Holocaust museum Yad Vashem and another is at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC. The fourth copy, which is the one listed on eBay, is dated April 18, 1945 in pencil and has the names of 801 men.
“It is extremely rare that a document of this historical significance is put on the market,” Zimet said.
The list was owned by the nephew of Itzhak Stern, the man credited with typing all the names. Stern and Zimet auctioned it off on eBay in 2010 for $2.2 million. The current unidentified owner has now decided to sell it.
Schindler’s List remains the only Spielberg film to win the Best Picture Oscar and also won him his first Oscar for Best Director. Liam Neeson was nominated for playing Schindler.
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