John Chillag

John Chillag was a Holocaust survivor and author, born in Vienna, Austria, in 1927. His family relocated to Hungary in 1934 in an attempt to escape the growing influence of Nazi Germany. However, this move ultimately proved unsuccessful, as they were forced into a Jewish ghetto in Győr during the German occupation of Hungary in 1944. Chillag and his family were subsequently sent to Auschwitz, where a significant number of his relatives, including his mother, lost their lives.

Chillag and his father were selected for manual labor and transferred to Bochum, where they worked at a steel plant called Bochumer Verein. Tragedy struck again when his father died in 1945. Chillag was then force-marched to Buchenwald concentration camp, where he was eventually liberated by the Allies. He received medical treatment after his liberation, which occurred just two weeks after his arrival at the camp. Chillag later went on to become an author, and he passed away in 2009, at the age of 82, having survived the unimaginable hardships of his youth to build a new life in Australia.