All persons
Olga Horak
1926–2024
- Nationality
- Australia
- Occupation
- writer
Olga Horak OAM (née Rosenberger; 11 August 1926 â 15 August 2024) was a Slovak-born Australian author, artist and Holocaust survivor.
Incarceration history
Facilities
- Zigeunerlager AuschwitzDates unknown
- Zigeunerlager AuschwitzDates unknown
Biography
Olga Horak OAM (née Rosenberger; 11 August 1926 â 15 August 2024) was a Slovak-born Australian author, artist and Holocaust survivor. Horak was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia on 26 January 2014 as part of the Australia Day Honours List. Born in 1926 in Bratislava in what was then Czechoslovakia to Piroska (née Weiss; 1905â1945) and Hugo Rosenberger (1894â1944), she was transported by the Nazis to Auschwitz in 1944 and later, in early January 1945, aged 17, to Bergen-Belsen. She was the sole survivor of her family. Her sister, Judith (1925â1942) was murdered in Auschwitz in 1942. Her father was transported to Auschwitz in 1944 and her mother died the day after Belsen was liberated by the British on 15 April 1945. She and her husband John Horak emigrated to Australia in 1949 and established Hibodress, a garment business. In 2000, she published her memoir, Auschwitz to Australia.
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