Historic appropriation
Apr. 10th, 2009 03:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
brightlywoven This week I heard reported a wonderful 'find' - an original 'list' of names saved by Oskar Schindler was 'discovered' in a collection of boxes in the NSW public library. But when you hear the sequence of events, it sounds less like a 'find' and more like the most extreme arrogance and carelessness.
The list was in the possession of Leopold Pfefferberg, who was number 173 on the list. He gave it to Thomas Kenneally when he met the author in New York in the 80's. Kenneally went on to write his novel Schindler's Ark, made into film etc etc. At some point, Kenneally then sold his 'archives' - a dozen boxes of papers related to his writing of the book - at an auction. As it happens, the boxes were bought by a public library in Australia, and in going through the boxes they 'discovered' the list therein.
I can see two interpretations of the events
1) Kenneally didn't know the list was in the boxes he sold. In that case, he's been shockingly careless with a document that was carefully kept for more than 30 years and lent?given? to him to tell an important story.
2) Kenneally considered this to be one of 'his' documents. That it was somehow equivalent to any other source he looked at or note he made in working on the novel, and he had the kind of ownership over it that entitled him to sell it at public auction.
This seems to me to be an appalling kind of appropriation of someone else's history for financial gain.
The list was in the possession of Leopold Pfefferberg, who was number 173 on the list. He gave it to Thomas Kenneally when he met the author in New York in the 80's. Kenneally went on to write his novel Schindler's Ark, made into film etc etc. At some point, Kenneally then sold his 'archives' - a dozen boxes of papers related to his writing of the book - at an auction. As it happens, the boxes were bought by a public library in Australia, and in going through the boxes they 'discovered' the list therein.
I can see two interpretations of the events
1) Kenneally didn't know the list was in the boxes he sold. In that case, he's been shockingly careless with a document that was carefully kept for more than 30 years and lent?given? to him to tell an important story.
2) Kenneally considered this to be one of 'his' documents. That it was somehow equivalent to any other source he looked at or note he made in working on the novel, and he had the kind of ownership over it that entitled him to sell it at public auction.
This seems to me to be an appalling kind of appropriation of someone else's history for financial gain.
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 10:37 pm (UTC)He must have been hard up if he was selling his papers, anyway, given that most authors donate them to a library.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-10 11:52 pm (UTC)