Branko Lustig

Branko Lustig (10 June 1932 – 14 November 2019) was a Croatian-born film producer and Holocaust survivor who earned two Academy Awards for Best Picture as co-producer of Schindler's List (1993) and Gladiator (2000). Born in Osijek, then part of Yugoslavia, to a Jewish family, Lustig was deported to Auschwitz concentration camp at age 12, where he endured forced labor and selections for extermination before being transferred to Bergen-Belsen, from which he was liberated in 1945 while suffering from typhoid fever. After the war, he entered the film industry in Yugoslavia, eventually relocating to the United States, where his production credits included ensuring historical accuracy in depictions of the Holocaust for Schindler's List, a film that drew directly from survivor testimonies and won seven Oscars overall. Lustig's career also featured contributions to the USC Shoah Foundation, which he helped establish to preserve video testimonies from Holocaust survivors and other genocide victims, reflecting his lifelong dedication to combating denialism through empirical documentation. In 2015, he donated his Schindler's List Oscar statuette to Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial, underscoring his commitment to remembrance over personal acclaim. Lustig died of heart failure in Zagreb at age 87.