A long-thought lost model used by grateful Jewish workers to create a gold ring for Oskar Schindler has been donated to the Melbourne Jewish Holocaust Centre, where it will go on display.
The model that lay in the Melbourne workshop of ring maker Jozef Gross for more than 50 years.
The ring-making was portrayed in Steven Spielberg’s film “Schindler’s List” as having been made from gold sourced from prisoners’ teeth, according to the Holocaust center.
Schindler, the hero of Thomas Kenneally’s book “Schindler’s Ark” as well as the Oscar-winning film, was a German industrialist and member of the Nazi Party who saved Jews by employing them in his factory and treating them humanely. He saved about 1,200 Jews.
At the end of the war Gross, a master jeweler, made the ring for Schindler, who lost it shortly after the war. The model came to Australia with Gross.
The jeweler was a very private person and chose not to share his story with the world, telling only his family and a few others about his war experiences. Importantly, however, Gross gave an in-depth description of the process used to make the ring to his Australian business partner. The model was discovered by Gross’ son, Louis, in a box, along with other jewelry-making paraphernalia after Gross died in 1997.
The model is one of the few physical objects remaining from Schindler’s factory.
