Mosman Municipal Council

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Author evening: Tom Keneally - Searching For Schindler

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In 1980 Tom Keneally was in Beverley Hills returning from the Sorrento film festival where The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith had been showing. Looking for a new briefcase, Tom meets the Polish-Jewish Leopold Pfefferberg Page aka Poldek and his life for the next few years is taken over by this charismatic and driven man and the story he wants shared. “It’s a story for you, I swear,” he says to Tom. The story is of course that of “The all-drinking, all-screwing, all black-marketeering Nazi. But to me he was Jesus Christ, Oskar Schindler”. And Poldek shared with Tom the story of Schindler’s Ark which went on to win the Booker Prize and ultimately to become the Oscar award-winning film Schindler’s List.

Searching For Schindler is very much Tom’s journey, he reflects on his early days as a writer with quite a bit of success – but no confidence – and how this book, the people he met, and the film it became, changed his life.

From his Sydney home, he tracked down the main player’s in Poldek and Schindler’s story. Tom and Poldek travelled across the US, Germany, Israel, Austria and Poland interviewing survivors and discovering extraordinary stories.

Schindler’s Ark took a huge toll on Tom, and his family, he had never been so overwhelmed by the writing of a story. It forced him to think about Australians and their attitudes to the Holocaust, to think about the Israel / Palestine situation and about families.

Not ready to give up the story of Schindler and his Jews after the enormous success of the book, Tom is there for the film adaptation and on set for the filming. Filled with stories of Steven Spielberg, Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes and many other well-known and strong characters Searching For Schindler gives Tom Keneally scope to show the wonderful, warm, thinking, compassionate and very funny man that he is.

Pre-paid bookings essential at Mosman Library. Adults $7.70 Pensioners/Students $5.50 (passes must be shown). For all enquiries contact Mosman Library on 9978 4091 or Pages and Pages on 9969 9736.

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