Outlasting the Nazis and Communists: My Life in Vienna and Prague by Paul Vantoch

Buy this book at Amazon or for Kindle

When Germany invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939, the fate of Paul Vantoch’s Jewish father hung in the balance. To save the family business, Eugen Vantoch divorced his wife and went into hiding only to see, after liberation from the Nazis, Czechoslovakia fall under Stalin’s harsh Communist doctrine.Paul Vantoch’s book offers a revealing and little-known portrait of the life a Mischling (half-breed) in Prague under German occupation, followed by Soviet ideological tyranny. The tightly woven chronicle tells the unforgettable tale of how Paul helped his father survive Hitler’s systematic extermination of Jews, and how Paul and his mother escaped the Communists.Paul Vantoch was born June 3, 1925, in Vienna, Austria, to a Jewish father (Eugen Vantoch) and Catholic mother (Maria Kasuhn). The family moved to Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1938 to evade the Nazis, only to see their adopted country invaded by Germany in 1939. They outlasted the Nazis only to see their country taken over by Russia and the imposition of Stalin’s harsh Communist doctrine. Paul later escaped, following his mother to Canada, then emigrated to the United States, where resided until 2017, when he passed away at age 92, surrounded by family and friends.

Year first published: 2020