“Schindler’s List” producer Branko Lustig dies at 87

Branko Lustig, an Oscar-winning Croatian film producer and Holocaust survivor, has died at 87

Branko Lustig, an Oscar-winning Croatian film producer and Holocaust survivor, has died at 87.

The Yad Vashem center in Jerusalem said Lustig died Thursday in Zagreb, the capital of his native Croatia. No other details were immediately released.

Lustig is best known for winning Academy Awards for Best Picture for Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List” and for Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator.” Croatian media and officials have praised him as the nation’s most successful and most prominent film producer.

Lustig was born in the eastern Croatian town of Osijek, which was part of the Yugoslavia at the time. In World War II, he was imprisoned at Auschwitz and later in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.

Croatia’s capital of Zagreb has declared Lustig an honorary citizen for promoting democratic values, culture and tolerance.