Oscar winner led ‘amazing life’

Holocaust survivor and Academy Award winner Branko Lustig has died at his home in Croatia aged 87.

He won critical acclaim for his work as a producer on Schindler’s List and Gladiator, which both won best picture at the Oscars.

Born in 1932 to a Croatian Jewish family, he was imprisoned in both the Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps during the Second World War.

Most members of his family were killed in death camps including his grandmother and his father, who was killed in Cakovec on March 15 1945.

He survived, and during the mid 1950s began working in the Yugoslavian film industry, where he served as a location manager and assistant director on several pictures.

Mr Lustig moved to Los Angeles in the late 1980s and it was there that he met celebrated director Steven Spielberg.

Together, in 1994, they worked on one of the most-awarded films in history, Schindler’s list – directed by Spielberg, with Mr Lustig as producer.

After winning his first Academy Award for the film, he gave an emotional speech, saying: “It is a long way from Auschwitz to this stage.

“The dying ones left me the legacy to tell – if I survive – how it was.”

He picked up a second Academy Award for his work on Gladiator and was a producer on other highly rated films such as Black Hawk Down, American Gangster and Hannibal.

Lustig donated his Schindler’s List Oscar to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.

He also joined Spielberg to set up a project at the Shoah Foundation to record the testimony of more than 50,000 Holocaust survivors.

Mr Lustig was named an honorary citizen of the City of Zagreb this year for his contribution to promoting the values of a democratic society, film art and a culture of understanding.

Gladiator star Russell Crowe tweeted: “What an amazing life he led. From the horrors of WW2 to the glory of two Academy Awards. He said to me once ‘you disagree with me a lot, but you’re always my friend on the days I need you.’ Yes. Much love Branko. Always your friend.”

“The dying ones left me the legacy to tell – if I survive – how it was”

Producer Branko Lustig died aged 87