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Thomas Keneally
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Schindler's Ark Paperback – Import, December 28, 2006

by Thomas Keneally (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 3,527 ratings
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Schindlers Ark
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  1. Print length
    432 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Sceptre
  4. Publication date
    December 28, 2006
  5. Dimensions
    5.12 x 1.1 x 7.76 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    9780340936290
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0340936290
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0340936290
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Sceptre; Reprint edition (December 28, 2006)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 432 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780340936290
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0340936290
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.5 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.12 x 1.1 x 7.76 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 3,527 ratings

About the author

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Thomas Keneally

Thomas Keneally

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Thomas Keneally began his writing career in 1964 and has published thirty novels since. They include SCHINDLER'S ARK, which won the Booker Prize in 1982 and was subsequently made into the film Schindler's List, and THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH, CONFEDERATES and GOSSIP FROM THE FOREST, each of which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. His most recent novels are THE DAUGHTERS OF MARS, which was shortlisted for the Walter Scott Prize in 2013, SHAME AND THE CAPTIVES and NAPOLEON'S LAST ISLAND. He has also written several works of non-fiction, including his memoir HOMEBUSH BOY, SEARCHING FOR SCHINDLER and AUSTRALIANS. He is married with two daughters and lives in Sydney.

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5.0 out of 5 stars What Can one Say?
Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2014
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No matter the ethical background of a student, the lesson that true good and true evil exist in the world is invaluable. This can be a difficult concept to convey without controversy. The concept of what is good and what is evil is not constant. This changes from person to person based on belief. There is, however, an area of absolutes that ought to be discussed so that students can know where and when to take a stand and for what cause. There are a few examples from history that can be used to have this discussion productively. One such example is the Nazi Holocaust. This terrifying case has absolutes that do not change. Thus persons and events from World War II can be used as examples of good and evil, and therefore can lead to productive discussions of ethics. A very good text to use in order to encourage this discussion is Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally.

Keneally’s novel is not the same as most novels. First it is a novel that deals with historical events. This is not too uncommon, though it is less common than non-historical fiction. What makes Schindler’s List special is its absolute accuracy. Keneally studiously sifted through all of the documents regarding Oskar Schindler and those he rescued, as well as interviewed many of those he rescued. The result is a nuanced portrait of Schindler that is imminently readable for any audience. His skill as a novelist allows Keneally to portray the horror of Goeth’s road paved with Jewish gravestones in a way that a strict historian could not. Where Keneally

uses imagination instead of simple fact it is to imaginatively enter a scene that factually took place and present information unavailable in the historical record. This includes things like metaphors about how a person or a location appeared.

The book’s existence as something of a quasi-novel/biography serves the needs of Young Adult Readers in two very important ways. First, it makes factual accounts accessible and exciting. Rather than dispassionately seek the stark facts of The Holocaust and those who resisted it, readers are able to pathetically experience the suffering and moral conflict. Thus the faculties of imagination and empiricism are both equally engaged. This can lead to more exciting and productive discussions. Second, the reliability of this kind of novel in representing fact portrays the ethical difficulties inherent in The Holocaust. We Goeth as the monstrous sadist and mass murderer, but also as the companion, connoisseur, and host. We see Schindler as the philanthropist, but also as the womanizer and profiteer. The net result is that a Young Adult is presented with an ethical reality in which there are absolutes being encountered by fallible people, people who are not absolute.

Discussing moral absolutes is effective in a classroom to encourage critical thinking and to help students develop a chosen, rather than an indoctrinated, moral ideology for themselves. Schindler’s List is particularly effective here since it presents readers with two ethical questions that in fact have right and a wrong answers: was it ethically moral for the Nazis to attempt to eliminate ethnic Jewry, and was it ethical for Oskar Schindler to resist this attempt? The lesson here is that there are moral absolutes despite one’s political or religious background. The lesson becomes even more effective when the follow up question: were Goeth and Schindler moral men is asked.
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Claudia Moscovici
5.0 out of 5 stars An Unlikely Hero
Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2014
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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 term. In fact, Keneally states, “most exchanges and conversations, and all events, are based on the detailed recollections of the Schindlerjuden (Schindler Jews), of Schindler himself, and of other witnesses to Oskar’s acts of outrageous rescue”. (New York: Touchstone, Schindler’s List, 1982, Author’s Note, 10)
Oskar Schindler is, by the author’s own account, an unlikely hero. As Keneally acknowledges in the Prologue, Oskar Schindler “was not a virtuous man in the customary sense of the term”. (Schindler’s List, 14) We tend to think of heroes as virtuous individuals: people with extraordinary character and moral fortitude. Yet Oskar Schindler was an average man, with ordinary human foibles. He was a sensualist and an honest womanizer: if that’s not a contradiction in terms. He openly cheated on his virtuous wife, Emilie, with both long-term mistresses and countless casual lovers. He loved carousing with his friends, business partners, acquaintances and escorts. Worse yet, he was a member of the Nazi party, initially joining its ranks out of genuine political conviction, of his own free will.
Though quickly disillusioned by the Nazis, Schindler nonetheless hopes to profit financially from the new regime. An ethnic German from the Sudetenland, he moves to Krakow Poland to set up an enamelware factory that will employ the slave labor of local Jews. The large Jewish community in Krakow was isolated from the rest of the population by the Nazis in a ghetto, which was formally established in March 1941 in the Podgorze district. Schindler witnesses the incredible cruelty manifested by the SS towards the 15,000 helpless Jewish civilians as well as the random acts of violence of his sociopathic country mate, Amos Goeth, who regards the captive Jews as his personal property and prey.
This biographical novel presents a slice of history and a study of contrasts: between times of normalcy and the mass insanity of the Nazi era; between the humane actions of Oskar Schindler and the savage inhumanity of Amon Goeth. Without the dark figure of Goeth, it would be more difficult to appreciate Schindler’s heroism and humanity.
Amos Goeth, the SS Second Lieutenant in charge of liquidating the Krakow ghetto and of overseeing the Plaszow concentration and labor camp, is a malicious sadist. He savagely beats his Jewish servant, Helen Hirsch, and kills Jewish inmates, randomly, just for sport. As the narrator states, “No one knew Amon’s precise reason for settling on that prisoner—Amon certainly did not have to document his motives. With one blast from the doorstep, the man was plucked from the group of pushing and pulling captives and hurled sideways in the road” (192).
By way of contrast to Goeth’s predatory cat and mouse games, Schindler exhibits compassion, courage and character. He uses all his connections, resourcefulness and wealth to save as many Jews as possible during the Holocaust. Threatened by the advance of the Russian army on the Eastern front, the Nazis dismantle the Plaszow labor and concentration camp. When he finds out about their plans to send most of the prisoners to their deaths in Auschwitz, Schindler promises those who worked for him that he would save them. He sets up a small munitions factory in his hometown of Brinnlitz, Czechoslovakia, where he eventually manages to bring over 1500 Jews. In these horrific times, slavery becomes the Jews’ only salvation. “Oskar’s list, in the mind of some, was already more than a mere fabulation. It was a List. It was a sweet chariot which might swing low” (277).
The Nazi regimes brought out the worst in many people throughout Germany and occupied Europe: at best, a cruel indifference to the enslavement and massacre of Jews; at worst, various degrees of collusion with the local Nazi administrations. Yet these evil times also brought out the best in some, like Oskar Schindler. His acts of courage and resourcefulness have inspired the blockbuster movie, Schindler’s List (1993), directed by Steven Spielberg. Perhaps this is why we still know of Oskar Schindler to this day. But the greatest homage to this ordinary man who did his best to protect fellow human beings from the Nazi savagery remains that he will be forever remembered and honored by generations of Jews as an extraordinary hero.

Claudia Moscovici, Holocaust Memory
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Moi
5.0 out of 5 stars Honesty & Truth whenever possible!
Reviewed in Canada on June 9, 2023
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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!!!
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Nigel Fountain
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 20, 2024
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Well written
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Jumana
5.0 out of 5 stars "Hope" is how I would summarize this book in a word
Reviewed in India on December 13, 2023
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It is a grim portrayal of the life of Oskar Schindler who in turn rescues the life of thousands of Jews. "Hope" it is. Watch the movie after reading the book if you can.
One person found this helpful
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wie-czo
5.0 out of 5 stars Oskar explained
Reviewed in Spain on July 8, 2020
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Excellent book. Critical and deeply moving at the same time. Trustworthy tone.
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Francesca Moretti
5.0 out of 5 stars Buone condizioni
Reviewed in Italy on October 14, 2020
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Buone condizioni
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