John Chillag (April 20, 1927 – March 21, 2009) was an Austrian Holocaust survivor and author. Born in Vienna, he fled with his family to Hungary in 1934 to avoid Nazi Germany's expanding sphere of influence, however during the German occupation of Hungary in 1944 he and his family were placed in a 5,000 strong Jewish ghetto in Győr, then taken to

Auschwitz Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

. Between 30 and 60 relatives died there, including his Czechoslovakian-born mother, however he and his father were selected for manual labour and taken to

Bochum Bochum ( , also , ; wep, Baukem) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 364,920 (2016), is the sixth largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) of the most populous Germany, German federal state o ...

to work for Bouchumer Verein, a steel plant. His father died there in 1945, and Chillag was force-marched to

Buchenwald concentration camp Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

where he was liberated by the

Allies An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

two weeks later and given medical treatment. Chillag emigrated to

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

after the war, having found no surviving family back in Hungary and being unable to remake the family business following the arrival of communism. Marrying a British-born expatriate in 1950, he worked for the Australian Atomic Energy Commission between 1957 and 1963, living in

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. He moved to Leeds, England in 1962, to work in Boston Spa until retirement, whereupon he became a European Information Officer for Leeds Metropolitan University. His daughter, diagnosed with Down syndrome, prompted him to work voluntarily with Mencap, and he continued to give lectures on his experiences at the

Imperial War Museum Imperial War Museums (IWM) is a British national museum organisation with branches at five locations in England, three of which are in London. Founded as the Imperial War Museum in 1917, the museum was intended to record the civil and military ...

. In 2004, he published his memoirs, ''The Odyssey of John Chillag, a Hungarian Jew Born in Vienna 2006: From Győr in Hungary to Australia and England Via Auschwitz and Buchenwald''.

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* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Chillag, John 1927 births 2009 deaths Jewish emigrants from Austria after the Anschluss to Australia Jewish British writers Auschwitz concentration camp survivors Jewish Australian writers Writers from Vienna