Holocaust survivor Peter Gaspar doesn’t think he was brave.
But he thinks the people who sheltered him and his Jewish parents in Slovakia during World War II were the epitome of it.
“We were in hiding for three years, hidden by Christian friends of my parents,” Mr Gaspar said.
“We survived until the end of 1944 before we gave ourselves up because we were endangering other people’s lives.”
Mr Gaspar and his mother spent the last six months of the war in the Teresin concentration camp near Prague while his father was sent to a labour camp in Germany.
“It was a holding camp, not an extermination camp, but there was a weekly transport to the extermination camp and you never knew when it would be your turn to be shunted onto the train.”
Mr Gaspar’s story had a special meaning – “don’t be a bystander” – for Ballarat High School year nine students on Tuesday.
Read the full article by Fiona Henderson at The Courier.