One of the producers of the Hollywood movie “Schindler’s List” says he is gifting the Oscar award that he won for the film to Yad Vashem.
Branko Lustig, 83, is himself a Holocaust survivor from Croatia and says he’s decided Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Museum “is the place where the award should be kept after my death.”
Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic has been invited by Lustig to attend a ceremony to be held by Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev next month in which Lustig will present the Oscar statuette to the museum. The Croatian president is expected in Israel at that time for a working visit in any event, but it is not yet clear whether he will attend the ceremony.
Lustig was born to Jewish parents in what was, at the time, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Neither parent was observant, although all four grandparents were Orthodox. He prayed in synagogue with them regularly.
During World War II the Hollywood producer was taken with his family by the Nazis and spent two years in the Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen death camps. He lost his entire family, except for his mother, whom he was fortunate to find after the war.