Thomas Keneally on the website of the movement. He is also a keen supporter of rugby league football, in particular the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles club of the NRL. In 2004, he gave the sixth annual Tom Brock Lecture. He made an appearance in the 2007 rugby league drama film "The Final Winter". In March 2009, the Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd, gave an autographed copy of Keneally's biography "Lincoln" to President Barack Obama as a state gift. Keneally's nephew Ben is married to former Premier of New South Wales and Sky News Australia newscaster Kristina Keneally. Keneally wrote the Booker Prize-winning
Poldek Pfefferberg death in 1974 seemed to end any possibility of a film. In 1980 when Thomas Keneally went into Pfefferberg's shop to ask about the price of briefcases, Pfefferberg learned that Keneally was a novelist and showed him his extensive files on Schindler. Keneally was interested, and Pfefferberg became an advisor for the book, accompanying Keneally to Poland where they visited Kraków and the sites associated with the Schindler story. Keneally dedicated "Schindler's Ark" to Pfefferberg: "who by zeal and persistence caused this book to be written." Pfefferberg explained the reasons behind his efforts to have the Schindler story told as: