Steven Spielberg Calls Shoah Foundation ‘More Crucial Now Than Ever’ in Accepting USC University Medallion on Behalf of Holocaust Survivors
variety.comJack Dunn Celina Biniaz, who at 93 is the youngest of the 1,200 people saved by Oskar Schindler in 1944, slowly walked her way to the podium as the ballroom fell still.
In her presence, the audience of about 265 people who gathered Monday on the USC campus were eager to watch living history unfold on stage, no doubt with memories of friends and family lost during World War II on their minds.
The audience at included 30 Holocaust survivors. “Oskar Schindler saved my life by adding my name and that of my parents to the list of workers who are to be protected from the Nazi deportation.
And 50 years later, you Steven [Spielberg], recorded my life by giving me back my voice,” Biniaz said of the German businessman whose incredible story of saving Jews during World War II was documented in Steven Spielberg‘s landmark 1993 film “Schindler’s List.” Biniaz was on hand at USC’s Town and Gown Ballroom to present Spielberg, the Oscar-winning director and founder of the Shoah Foundation, with the university’s highest honor, the USC University Medallion, bestowed on the famed filmmaker for his work on behalf of Holocaust survivors whose stories have been documented over the past 30 years by the Shoah Foundation.
Read more on variety.com