Auctions

Schindler’s Watch, Personal Items Fetch $46,000

AuctionsMar 08, 2019

Schindler’s Watch, Personal Items Fetch $46,000

A compass, medal and business card were sold alongside Oskar Schindler’s Longines wristwatch.

20190305_Schindler-header.jpg
This Longines watch belonged to Oskar Schindler. It sold, with other personal effects, for $46,303 at RR Auction’s March online sale.

Boston—Personal items that once belonged to Oskar Schindler—the man credited with saving nearly 1,200 Jews during the Holocaust—sold at auction this week for $46,303, nearly double their original estimate.

RR Auction offered the effects—a Longines watch, a compass, medal, fountain pens and a business card—as a single lot in its March online sale and estimated it would sell for $25,000.

“It’s an amazing archive of Schindler's personal belongings,” commented Bobby Livingston, RR Auction executive vice president. “Schindler struggled in everything he ever did before and after the war, so we are thrilled with the international media attention and honored to have had the opportunity to share his story.

“We felt very strongly that keeping the archive together as a single lot was the best way to present this historic grouping to the public and are extremely pleased with the results of the sale.”

Schindler was born in what is now the Czech Republic.

He became a member of the Nazi Party, and through wartime connections, obtained an enamelware and munitions factory in Poland that had been seized from its original Jewish owner.

Despite his Nazi party standing, Schindler became a secret advocate for the local Jews, who were being forced into ghettos and concentration camps, by employing them at this factory and repeatedly bribing Nazi officials to keep them from being deported.

His story became the subject of the Oscar-winning 1993 Steven Spielberg film “Schindler’s List.”

Ashley Davisis the senior editor, fashion at National Jeweler, covering all things related to design, style and trends.

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