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Gregor was born in a village in the part of Austria known as Carinthia. During World War I, he served in the Austro-Hungarian army and was wounded. Raised a Catholic, Gregor and his wife became Jehovah's Witnesses during the late 1920s. Gregor supported his wife and six children by working as a farmer and quarryman. 1933-39: The Austrian government banned Jehovah's Witness missionary work in 1936. Gregor was accused of peddling without a license and briefly jailed. When Germany annexed Austria in 1938,…
Jan-Peter's father, Heinz, was a German-Jewish refugee who married Henriette De Leeuw, a Dutch-Jewish woman. Frightened by the Nazi dictatorship and the murder of Heinz's uncle in a concentration camp, they immigrated to the Netherlands when Henriette was nine months pregnant. They settled in Amsterdam. 1933-39: Jan-Peter was born soon after his parents arrived in the Netherlands. He was 18 months old when Tommy, his baby brother, was born. In 1939 the parents and brother of Jan-Peter's father joined them…
Yona was the eldest of four children in a working-class Jewish family. The family lived in the Jewish section of Pabianice. Yona's father sold merchandise to Polish stores. When the Poles could not pay him for his goods, they would give him food for his family. It was a difficult life in Pabianice, but Yona's family was very close, and many relatives lived nearby. 1933-39: After war began in September 1939, the Germans set up a ghetto in Pabianice in Yona's neighborhood. Yona and all her extended family…
Ossi was the youngest of six children born to Roma ("Gypsies") who traveled in a family wagon. His family was Roman Catholic. Their caravan spent winters in Vienna, Austria's capital, and summers in the Austrian countryside. The Stojkas belonged to a tribe called the Lowara Roma, who made their living as itinerant horse traders. Ossi's ancestors had lived in Austria for more than 200 years. 1933-39: Ossi was 2 years old when Germany annexed Austria in March 1938. The Stojka family wagon was parked for the…
Marian was raised by Catholic parents in Niewodowo, a town in Poland's Bialystok Province near Lomza. His family lived there under Tsarist rule until 1918, when Poland regained its independence. Following high school, Marian joined the Capuchin Franciscan Order of Friars. After eight years of study in France and Italy, he returned to Poland to teach philosophy to students of his order. 1933-39: When Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Marian was at his monastery near Grodno. They evacuated the…
Rémy was born in a small French town to Catholic parents. In 1913, after studying law at the University of Paris, he joined the Tallandier publishing house in Paris. During World War I he served in the French army and was wounded five times. He returned to work at Tallandier after the war, and in 1919 he married Germaine Tallandier, the daughter of the owner. They had five children whom they raised as devout Catholics. 1933-39: In 1935 Rémy became the mayor of Avon, a small town about 35 miles southeast…
Smiljka was one of three daughters born to Serbian Orthodox parents in the town of Mostar in the central Yugoslav region of Herzegovina. Smiljka's mother died when Smiljka was 3, and the three girls were raised by their father. A tomboy in her youth, at 17 Smiljka won the Miss Makarska Riviera beauty pageant and left for Germany to become a fashion model. 1933-39: Smiljka had a successful modeling career in Berlin. With her tall, slim figure, high cheekbones, and almond-shaped, grey-blue eyes, she was…
One of five children, Claude grew up in a Catholic family in Paris. His father, a physician, owned a prosperous general medicine practice and medical laboratory. Claude's father encouraged him to study medicine and to join his practice, but Claude was more interested in becoming a lawyer. 1933-39: Claude continued his studies, and in 1936 he entered the university to study law. By mid-1939, Germany's threat against France had escalated, and on September 3, 1939, France declared war on Germany. Claude knew…
Adolphe was born to Catholic parents in Alsace when it was under German rule. He was orphaned at age 12, and was raised by his uncle who sent him to an art school in Mulhouse, where he specialized in design. He married in the village of Husseren-Wesserling in the southern part of Alsace, and in 1930 the couple had a baby daughter. In 1933 the Arnolds moved to the nearby city of Mulhouse. 1933-39: Adolphe worked in Mulhouse as an art consultant for one of France's biggest printing factories. When he wasn't…
Ruth grew up in Moravska Ostrava, a city in the region of Moravia with the third-largest Jewish community in Czechoslovakia. When Ruth was a child her parents divorced. She and her sister, Edith, moved in with their paternal grandmother and then with their uncle, but they kept in close contact with their father. Ruth trained to be a pianist and hoped to attend a musical academy in Prague. 1933-39: In March 1939 Bohemia and Moravia were occupied by the Germans and declared a German protectorate. That fall,…
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