Schindler’s List Schindler’s List question


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reality vs. fiction
Rachel Dyer Rachel Jan 02, 2013 10:24PM
I just started reading Schindler's List today. I started with the author's note, where the author talks about how he is using a novel format to tell a true story. He explains that he tried to stick to the real story as much as possible, but that some of the content of the conversations are imagined based on brief notes of those conversations. The back cover also says "based on a true story"

However, on the back of the title page, where the copyright page is, the publisher's note says "This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

So now I'm confused. Did the publisher make a mistake, or is it like "The Princess Bride" where something is claimed to be true but never was?



deleted member Jan 02, 2013 10:38PM   0 votes
It is a true story, though some of the characters are probably fictional - I enjoyed the book but I am not an expert! See, for example, http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/f...
Keneally was inspired by someone who survived the holocaust through being employed in Schindler's factory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poldek_P....
The copyright page is some sort of legal "protection" formula in case someone attempts to sue.

Keneally tends to write this type of book - non fiction or non fiction dressed up as a good tale. I also liked "The great shame", which was about transportation of Irish people to Australia during the famine.


The first printing of the book was titled, Shindler's Ark. I own a copy and find it to be a magnificent, brutal but compassinate tale of the human spirit's extremes. I wept in the book and during the movie.

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Dawson Anderson REALITY.....DUH MAYBE YOU SHOULD READ THE WHOLE BOOK TO SAY THAT THIS ISNT REALITY HITLERS REAL EVEN THOUGH THAT THE INTERNET SAYS THAT THIS IS JUST S ...more
Sep 12, 2013 06:24AM
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Elena Dawson - umm, not sure what your problem is... no one here said that Hitler wasn't real! Rachel asked a question based on something that is written on ...more
Sep 12, 2013 06:46AM

Based on all the research i have done (back in school), this is definitely based on a true story. However, I am not sure whether the publisher's note is a mistake or some sort of legal protection > i don't own a copy of the book, so i don't remember whether the library copy had that same publisher's note...


It's a true story but since some names were changed (not all of the survivors wanted to be mentioned in it or wanted to relive it, and some of the German families weren't too thrilled either) it needs to have a disclaimer.
Read Kinley's book "Finding Schindler" and it tells of the story of how it came to be written and the research he did in order to get it done.


I know someone who was saved by Schindler just as described in the book. HE WAS OUR NEIGHBOR AND died an old man several yearsago HE LIVED TO SEE GREAT GRANDCHIDREn (with his second wife his first wife and six children were killed by the germans]


Baset on true story .


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