Item 11: Holocaust survivors from Czechoslovakia ; John Eugen Horak interviewed by Nora Huppert 1990

MLOH 500/39-40

item

02/04/1990

Nonmusical Sound Recordings, Oral Histories

997038

Sound Recording : CY MLOH 500/39-40

2 sound cassettes (2 hrs.)

John Horak was born in Teplitz, Czechoslovakia, 1919. Before the war, he and his family moved to Bratislava. As priveleged Jews with favourable papers, John's family avoided deportation until 1943 when they went into hiding. John survived in Bratislava until the Slovakian uprising against the German occupation, in June and July 1944. At first he was hidden by a man and his wife who was an ex-employee of the family business. However, by December he had to move on to the woman's parents' residence in the village of Male Bedzany in the Tatra mountains. John lived there on forged papers until the area was liberated by the Russian Army in April 1945.

After the war, John returned to Bratislava, meeting up with his mother and brother beforehand. Another of his brothers had survived concentration camp. Together, John and his brothers restarted their family business. John stayed in Bratislava until 1948, but no longer felt comfortable in his homeland and moved to Switzerland. One year later, in 1949, he emigrated to Australia.

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Log of interview available in the Mitchell Library Reading Room -

Original Mitchell Library allocated tape number 20.