'Schindler's List' producer donates Oscar to Yad Vashem

JERUSALEM, July 22 (UPI) -- One of the producers of Schindler's List and also an Aushwitz survivor, Branko Lustig, is donating his Oscar he won from the film to Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.

On Wednesday, Lustig and his wife presented the award to the museum during a memorial service in Israel.

"I'm very honored, I feel this is a good (resting place) for the Oscar," Lustig told NBC News before the ceremony in Jerusalem, which was also attended by Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic.

The 83-year-old holocaust survivor worked with director, Steven Spielberg, on the film that tells a story about a German who helped save Jewish people from the Nazis during World War II.

The Oscar he is leaving at Yad Vasham is one of the two he has been awarded throughout his career. The second one was for his work as a producer on Gladiator.

"I'm not parting with it, I am leaving it to the nation, for generations to come... All Yad Vashem's visitors will see it, at my home there is only my wife and my daughter." he said.

Chairman at Yad Vashem, Avner Shalev, said, "His decision to separate himself from the award which means so much to a producer, to a creator, and to send it to Yad Vashem for eternity is very meaningful."

US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter also visited the museum earlier this week where he signed the guestbook outside the Children's Memorial.