Personal artifacts from German industrialist Oskar Schindler, who is credited with saving almost 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust, have recently come up for sale. These items offer a glimpse of history, as well as a telling tale of the man so revered for his selfless work. Among them are two Parker fountain pens, a Longines wristwatch, a compass, a 1928 Sudetenland Medal and a business card.
“It’s an amazing archive of Schindler’s personal belongings,” said Bobby Livingston, Executive VP at RR Auction, the Boston-based house handling the lot. “Schindler continues to be highly sought-after among collectors.”
Schindler, the topic of the 1982 novel by Australian author Thomas Keneally, Schindler’s Ark, and the Steven Spielberg film Schindler’s List (1993), protected his Jewish employees from near-certain death in his enamelware and ammunitions factories. He moved to West Germany after WWII and was supported by assistance from Jewish relief organizations. He later moved to Argentina, but returned to Germany in 1958. Schindler and his wife, Emilie, were named Righteous Among the Nations by the Israeli government in 1993. He was buried in Jerusalem on Mount Zion—the only member of the Nazi Party honored in this way.
The Items
The two Parker fountain pens are in a hinged Parker case. The annotation inside the lid of the case was written by Schindler’s biographer Erika Rosenberg. The Longines wristwatch has a white dial with gold-tone hands and markers and a silver-tone case on a black leather strap. The compass, manufactured by Bezard/Gotthilf Lufft, was purportedly used by Schindler and Emilie while fleeing Russian troops in 1945 and heading for American-occupied territory.
The Sudetenland Medal was awarded to all German officials and members of the Wehrmacht and SS who marched into Sudetenland. It was later awarded to military personnel participating in the occupation of the Sudetenland as a spy for the German government. Schindler’s thin wooden business card states his address as Frankfurt am Main, where he moved in 1957.
The lot originates from Emilie’s estate. Emilie played a pivotal role in assisting her husband in aiding the Jews, often in her own way. According to her biography, Maurice Markheim, one of the war survivors, recounted, “She got a whole truck of bread from somewhere on the black market. They called me to unload it,” he recounted. “She was talking to the S.S. and because of the way she turned around and talked, I could slip a loaf under my shirt. I saw she did this on purpose. A loaf of bread at that point was gold…”
The RR Auction Lot #122 is expected to fetch over $25,000 at the Fine Autographs and Artifacts Auction, which concludes on March 6.
Also up for auction is a Raoul Wallenberg Blue and gold Schutz-Pass issued to Emil Tanzer and dated September 15, 1944. Wallenberg, too, is credited with saving thousands of Jews. He issued these official-looking Swedish“passports” that granted immunity from deportation for the Hungarian bearer, thus saving thousands of lives.
