Thomas Keneally

Rare Schindler's list on display in Sydney
A list of names compiled by German industrialist Oskar Schindler in the final days of World War II is now on display at the New South Wales State Library.

The list has 801 names, ages, nationalities and other details of Jews who Schindler saved from Nazi death camps.

The list, one of a number of lists that Schindler wrote, was hurriedly typed out on 18 April 1945 in the closing days of World War II.

The 13-pages of yellowed paper lay buried for years in a bundle of documents used by New South Wales author Thomas Keneally to write his 1982 Booker Prize-winning Schindler's Ark, which inspired the Oscar-winning movie Schindler's List.

Mr Keneally got the list almost 30 years ago in a shop in Los Angeles, from one of the people whom Schindler helped - Leopold Pfefferberg, Jewish worker 173 on the list.

The author sold his collection of documents and notes to a manuscript dealer, and the library bought the Keneally papers 12 years ago.

State Library historian Olwen Pryke says neither she nor the manuscript dealer knew the copy of the list was hidden amongst Keneally's notes.

None of the originals is still in existence and the Sydney list, on display in the library, is one of only a handful of carbon copies around the world.

Dr Pryke describes the list as one of the most powerful documents of the 20th century.

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Thomas Keneally novels at Lake Macquarie Library
Angel in Australia (aka. Office of innocence)
Bettany's book
Blood red, sister Rose
Bring larks and heroes
By the line
Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
Confederates
Dutiful daughter
Family madness
Fear
Flying hero class
Gossip from the forest
Jacko
Office of innocence (aka. An angel in Australia)
Passenger
Playmaker
River town
Schindler's ark (aka. Schindler's list)
Survivor
Three cheers for the Paraclete
Tyrant's novel
Victim of the aurora
Widow and her hero
Woman of the inner sea