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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;cmezner, post: 8366529, member: 87809&quot;]My father was born in Prague, 1918 the son of a Jewish mother and an Austria-Hungarian father. In Oct 1918 the Allied armies would be making their final push towards the collapsing German border leading the Armistice Agreement signed on Nov 11, 1918 ending WW1. On Oct 28 Czechoslovakia was born with the end of the Austrian- Hungarian monarchy. Thomas Masaryk was elected first President. Seeds of the dark future were already being planted: Bohemia and Moravia, the early core of the state, had a large German speaking population in the Sudetenland. Joining the union was Slovakia which had a significant Hungarian speaking minority as too would Transcarpathian Ruthenia with its many Ukrainians and finally, the Poles of Zaolzie.</p><p>Before the outbreak of war, my father wanted to study mathematics, but war crushed his plans. After the outbreak of hostilities he was called up on 23/11/1939 into the German Army (able to avoid disclosing his Jewish ancestry) where he was&nbsp; in charge of a radio communications unit on the Russian Front. There he was wounded, including a shrapnel inside the head that was never removed. He was released by the Army in Jan 1943 and sent in 1944 to the Bystřice u Benešova&nbsp; concentration camp, which was for men, especially for descendants from mixed marriages and for those who refused to divorce with wives of Jewish origin. Although there were no gas chambers, the prisoners were subject to physical punishments: blows with sticks, mass punishments, for example, night boardings or marches. Prisoners were used to experiment artificial food: artificial fat.</p><p>The prisoners were released on May 4, 1945.</p><p><br /></p><p>This is a picture of my uncle (at left), my father (at right) and my grandmother, who committed suicide the day before being deported to Auschwitz. It is a picture of happy times.</p><p style="text-align: center">[ATTACH=full]1484770[/ATTACH] </p><p>[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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