Israel's Holocaust museum sued over Schindler's list

A woman in Argentina is suing Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum, for ownership of the famous of Oskar Schindler's famous list.

The documents compiled by the late industrialist helped save more than 1,000 Jews in Nazi Germany during the Second World War. Schindler's life and list were the subjects of the Oscar-winning film Schindler's List directed by Steven Spielberg.

Professor Erika Rosenberg states that she was friends Schindler's widow, Emilie. Rosenberg claims that a suitcase that housed the documents belonging to Emilie was stolen by a couple who cared for Schindler before he died. Yad Vashem claims it received the suitcase from the couple after it was legitimately gifted to them.

The case will be heard in the Jerusalem District Court for the coming months after a court in Israel rejected Yad Vashem's appeal to have the case thrown out.

Rosenberg, who also wrote a biography of Emilie, said reports of the suitcase being moved to Israel in 1999 caused her to become ill and accused the couple of theft.

"This is a huge injustice. I saved Jews, together with my husband, and now the Jews have taken the suitcase away from me. You must demand it, even after my death," Emilie said before her death in 2001 according to Rosenberg.

Yad Vashem denied the claim, calling it "an incomparably opportunistic, cynical and exploitative attempt to get rich by leveraging the relationship with Emilie -- an attempt that must be condemned and rejected out of hand, both in the legal sense and the moral sense."

Yad Vashem houses two of the four original lists believed to remain in existence.