Schindler widow dies in poverty

Peter Conradi

Emilie Schindler

EMILIE SCHINDLER, who with her husband Oskar helped save more than 1,000 Jews from the Nazis, has died after suffering a stroke. She was 94. Emilie, who separated from the womanising industrialist in the 1950s, spent her twilight years fighting for more recognition for her role in his wartime crusade - depicted in Steven Spielberg's 1993 film, Schindler's List, which won seven Academy awards.

According to friends, she lived in poverty, unable to benefit from the millions made by the film or Thomas Keneally's book, Schindler's Ark, on which it was based. After self-imposed exile in Argentina, she returned to Germany in July, but fell into a coma weeks later.

Oskar Schindler died in 1974. Their roles in saving the Jews could be split 50-50, said Erika Rosenberg, a friend who wrote a book of her life. "But she was cut out of the film and the book in a humiliating and offensive way."

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• In 1994 Bradley Smith noticed that Thomas Keneally's novel schindler's List was surreptitiously retitled as non-fiction
• Schindler, the Leiblers, and the Keeping of Lists
• Schindler widow threatens to sue Spielberg, wants 6 percent of Holocaust movie profits
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