"Schindler's List" - Thomas Keneally

Published in 1982 by Hodder and Stoughton

written by an Australian novelist, this book tells the the story of a Nazi Party Member who saves the lives of thousands of Polish and Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust.  Through a chance encounter with Poldek Pfefferberg in Beverly Hills, Keneally decided to write this inspiring and somewhat crazy story of Oskar Schindler.

Schindler is portrayed not as a perfect man, but as a flawed human who never stops believing that he is doing what is right by saving the lives of others.  The occasional heart-wrenching scenes of Auschwitz and the other death-camps are few and far between when set against the rest of this story.  And the many encounters between Schindler and party officials bartering over crockery and booze add a laughably human aspect to a group of men that have become somewhat superhumanly evil in our collective world mind.

This was a very very very good book.  And now I want to watch the movie in the hopes that it is as good.

Quotes:

"Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire"

"The principle was, death should not be entered like some snug harbor.  It should be an unambiguous refusal to surrender."

"The list was life"

Rating: *****