The legacy of Oskár and Emilie Schindler lives on in the new Survivors' Museum.

The "true story " of the 1,200 Jews saved by Oskar and Emilie Schindler is documented in a new museum in the Czech town of Brnenec, about 160 kilometers east of Prague, located in the former factory of the businessman who was immortalized in Steven Spielberg's film Schindler's List .

"The true story is the documented one, not the narrated, fictional, narrated, invented, or Wikipedian-educated one," said Argentine writer Erika Rosenberg, biographer of Oskar and Emilie Schindler, at the Survivors' Museum.

The new entity, inaugurated the day before, May 10, is located in the former textile factory of the Jewish industrial family Löw-Beer , who had to flee Nazi persecution in 1939, and went into exile in Brazil, the United States and Australia.

The opening coincided with the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II . It was also in May 1945 that Schindler received a gold ring from grateful Jewish survivors , made from gold extracted from his teeth. The ring was inscribed with the Hebrew words from the Talmud, which read: "Whoever saves one life saves the whole world."

Expropriated by the National Socialist regime during World War II, the industrial complex served Oskar Schindler (1908-1974) to install his kitchenware and ammunition factories , in which he employed Jews from various concentration and extermination camps to protect them from their systematic murder.

The Löw-Beer family recovered the ruined property in 2010 to restore it and dedicate it to the memory of the victims of the Shoah. To this end, they created the Arca Foundation. The industrial ruins, declared a historical monument in 2016, had to be cleared of toxic waste and restored in a painstaking process that continues today.

Today, his family members are scattered around the world . "I'm happy to give back, emotionally of course, a bit of my family to this place because they were survivors. My grandfather lived here, my father lived here, and then the world fell apart one day in 1938," said Daniel Low-Beer.

The museum, located in part of a renovated spinning mill, showcases the history of Schindler, his wife Emilie, the Löw-Beer family , and others connected to the area, along with testimonies from Holocaust survivors. It includes a space for exhibitions, lectures, film screenings, and concerts, as well as a café.

One of the buildings in the industrial complex, now called Schindler's Ark, where Schindler's Jewish employees lived , is still to be rebuilt, while the restored part has housed the museum.

"We've tried to save this place and bring back stories from the survivors to this museum," said Daniel Low-Beer, president of the Arca Foundation, at the museum's opening ceremony, which was attended by videoconference by Australian writer Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's Ark , the work that inspired the 1993 film that won Spielberg seven Oscars.

"I feel very close to what's going on there (...) It's a very noble idea," Keneally said.

Ten large panels with testimonies and photos from survivors , explanatory posters, paintings by Jewish artists who worked here, and video interviews make up an exhibition in the new museum that aims to bring the memory of Schindler and his wife Emilie closer to new generations .

Rosenberg recalled that for a long time, the focus was on Oscar, overshadowing the important role Emilie played in caring for and saving endangered Jews.

Emilie's image was blurred in the film, since neither Keneally got to interview her, nor did Spielberg consult her after signing the project with Universal Pictures, something that shocked the Argentine writer, for whom Emilie's contribution to this story "is 50% of the salvation," said the writer and journalist, highlighting how blurred the image of the protagonist's wife was in the Oscar-winning film.

"Emilie played an exemplary role," insisted the author of a biography of the recently deceased Pope Francis, recalling that neither Keneally nor Spielberg interviewed her before creating their respective works.

" She did all the administrative work and was the one who recruited . When she found out there was someone hiding in a basement, she would recruit them (so they could work in the factory)," he says.

She says that prisoners arrived at the factory "starving, who didn't even weigh 30 kilos (...) and she (Emilia) saved their lives: she took them to a barrack, which she closed during the day, and during the night she brought them food and that's how they survived the war."

In addition to Rosenberg, who expressed his appreciation for the fact that the new museum also truthfully honors the role of Emilie Schindler , the opening was also attended by Polish actress Olivia Dabrowska, who became known as "the girl in red" in the Schindler film, as well as numerous descendants of survivors of the infamous List.

With information from EFE and AP.