Thomas Keneally's Award-Winning Novel, "Schindler's List"

Tim Tansley: We went to Krakow and Auschwitz, and it made me realise I only knew the surface story. So I bought the books about Auschwitz, Searching for Schindler and Schindlers Ark (AKA Schindlers List) and the film, Schindlers List.
Read them in order, and found that Schindlers Ark was almost (almost) redundant. The book on Auschwitz, Searching for Schindler and the film, Schindlers List, gave me personally the same detail with the book Schindlers Ark not truly adding anything to the other items.
Good purchases.

United Kingdom on Nov 07, 2023

David Tsubaki: My son watched the movie and then asked for this book. He said it was well written and hopes history never repeats itself.

United States on Oct 29, 2023

Kitty: So much more than the movie ‘Schindler’s List’.
A man with many flaws but a savior to so many Jews during the war!

United States on Oct 17, 2023

Kindle Customer: What an amazing story, compelling and yet not quite as grim as the film. A wonderful telling of the story of so many

United Kingdom on Oct 11, 2023

Ernie cardinal1: A masterpiece of a story and put into a nicely made book

Canada on Jun 27, 2023

Moi: WOW!!! No words..just blew me away...but have to admit the German officers titles do get a tad confusing..especially not knowing German..but still worth the read!

Saw 'Schindler's List' movie when it first came out & have watched it so many times since then...this is the closest you will get to the movie for the truth about Oskar Schindler.\

AMAZING man!!!

Canada on Jun 09, 2023

Strat Cat: I cannot believe the accolades and awards this book has. And all those 5-star reviews are misrepresented! People aren't giving the writing 5 stars, they're giving Schindler and his good deeds 5 stars, because this book is, without doubt, the WORST book I've ever read.
I've read everything from To Kill a Mockingbird to Killing Floor - literary classics to modern commercial fiction - but nothing prepared me for this rambling, garbled mess of a book.
I've seen the film. Very moving. The book? It's not a coherent story and what there is is told in such a longwinded, boring way, it's impossible to properly connect with the events or the characters.
One of the biggest problems is Keneally doesn't "show" the story, but just tells you what happens in summary, like a reporter would. For example, Schindler has an argument with someone and ends up punching them, but the author only tells you it happened instead of describing the scene so you can picture it in your head. Likewise, he tells you about shootings at a synagogue instead of showing the scene. He tells you Schindler is charming and cunning at making deals, but he doesn't show you any scene to prove...

United Kingdom on Nov 09, 2021

Eddie Wannabee: Imagine a well dressed industriliast that likes to drink, and make money, but with a heart of gold, that basically despises the state of things during World War 2, but knows how to get things done, and treat those that can help him which are the brutal members of the nazi regime, with a velvet glove, making it possible for him to save countless lives of Jewish people otherwise destined for a short and bleak future.
The subject matter is inspiring, the writing a little on the convoluted side, but done in a very incisive way, by a talented Mr. thomas Keneally. Is it a surprise that the movie version differs from the book? I do not think so, for Hollywood, even when producing serious tragic movies like this one, has a way to add the panache. Either way, book and movie, are something special, and Schindler's List is a powerful story about an extra ordinary human being, that instead of washing his hands and pretend nothing was wrong, took matters into his own hands and safe enough lives that never stopped being thankful to him, and honor his memory to this day. Enough said of the tragic faith of the Jewish during the nazi reign of power, it is in annals of a shameful history, but...

United States on Jul 17, 2014

Suncoast: Thomas Keneally's Man Booker Prize winning novel about how Oscar Schindler saved around 1,200 Jews from the Holocaust is one of the most astounding factual historical stories I have read. Many of you will have seen Spielberg's excellent film of "Schindlers' List". The novel on which it is based gives the reader a better understanding of Schindler than can be conveyed in a 3 hour movie.

Keneally was inspired to write the book when he met Poldek Pfefferberg, a Holocaust survivor, who had extensive files about Schindler. Before writing the book Keneally had discussions with survivors (mostly "Schindlerjuden" - Schindler Jews) in many countries, including Australia, Israel, West Germany, Austria, the United States, Argentina, and Brazil. Keneally uses the devices of a novel to describe the enigmatic and ambiguous character of Schindler and how he risked his own life to help many Jews and eventually to save some of them from the death camps. Keneally dedicated the book to Pfefferberg: "who by zeal and persistence caused this book to be written."

Oskar Schindler was born in Austria but moved to Cracow in Poland just before the war. There he acted as a model German as a...

United States on Apr 03, 2014

Claudia Moscovici: An Unlikely Hero: On Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally

Slavery is perhaps the most debasing system in human civilization. It degrades human beings to the status of property. Slaves are bought and sold like objects. They are forced to work for free or for flimsy compensation, often in grueling and inhumane conditions. Sometimes they are raped and beaten by their owners. Slaves are deprived of all human rights and of their dignity. With the exception of the Holocaust, I don’t know of any other period in human history when slavery was desired by the slaves themselves and when forced labor became a saving grace for the victims. In such a dark epoch, when everything conspired to wipe the Jewish people of the face of the Earth, enslaving over a thousand of them in an enamel factory became an act of courage and heroism.
As incredible as this topsy-turvy perspective may seem to contemporary readers, this is the story of Thomas Keneally’s great historical novel, Schindler’s List. The novel is based upon the eyewitness accounts of several of the Jewish survivors saved by the German industrialist Oskar Schindler. It is a biographical fiction in the strict sense of the...

United States on Feb 26, 2014