A lost piece of Holocaust history, celebrated in the film Schindler’s List, has gone on public display in Australia.
The item was the lead model for the gold ring presented to Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist, by the Jews he employed in his factories during the war years, saving them from the Nazis.
The model and the ring were made by Jozef Gross, one of those employed by Schindler in occupied Poland and later Czechoslovakia. The presentation of the gold ring to Schindler by some of those he saved was re-enacted in the final scenes of Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film.
Mr Gross suffered traumatic losses in the Holocaust: his wife and child and his seven siblings died. After the war he emigrated to Melbourne.
His son, Louis Gross, said yesterday that his father had begun a jewellery business in Melbourne that he operated for decades with a partner, Andrew Belza, also a Jewish émigré.
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After Mr Gross Sr died in 1997, aged 93, his son collected a small box from Mr Belza that contained items kept by his father. “They were just odds and sods so I put it in a cupboard and left it there,” he said.
Years later he showed the small box again to Mr Belza. “He rummaged through it and came across the model for the ring. He exclaimed, ‘Louis, this is the model for Schindler’s ring. Your father was always looking for it’.”
Mr Gross said that his father had spoken little of Schindler or the gold ring he had made for him. “He had difficulty in coming to terms with praising any German,” he said. “Toward the later part of his life he softened a little bit. He saw Schindler as a sort of opportunistic adventurer — a saint and a sinner. None of these stories are simple.”
Schindler lost his ring after the war. The model used to make the gift has gone on display at the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne.