20 Facts About Richard Glazar

Richard Glazar was a Czech-Jewish inmate of the Treblinka extermination camp in German-occupied Poland during the Holocaust.

One of a small group of survivors of the camp's prisoner revolt in August 1943, Glazar described his experiences in an autobiographical book, Trap with a Green Fence: Survival in Treblinka.

Richard Glazar was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, to a Jewish-Bohemian family who spoke both Czech and German.

Richard Glazar's father served in the Austro-Hungarian Army before independence.

Richard Glazar's parents divorced in 1932, and his mother married a wealthy leather merchant, Quido Bergmann, who already had two children, Karel and Adolf.

Richard Glazar's father died of pneumonia in the Soviet Union, to which he had escaped from the Nisko reservation in the General Government of occupied Poland; some 1,100 Czech Jews had been deported there by the Nazis in 1939.

Richard Glazar's mother survived both Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, and was the only member of his family left when he returned to Prague in 1945.

Richard Glazar was accepted into the Charles University in Prague in June 1939.

Richard Glazar was originally enrolled as a philosophy student, but anti-Jewish legislation after the German occupation forced him into a course reading economics.

Richard Glazar's stepfather did not take this opportunity, as he did not want to leave behind all that he had built up in Czechoslovakia.

In Terezin, Richard Glazar met Karel Unger, who became a close friend.

Richard Glazar was to stay in Terezin for only one month, before he and Unger were transported to Treblinka on October 8,1942.

Richard Glazar wrote his story down after the war, and had part of it published in 1967 in a Czech magazine, Mezinarodni politika.

When Richard Glazar moved to Switzerland after the Prague Spring, his memoir was published in full in German as Die Falle mit dem grunen Zaun: Uberleben in Treblinka.

Richard Glazar shouted, and I understood that I was to pick up clothing, bundle it, and take it somewhere.

Richard Glazar was instead selected for forced labor along with a friend, Karel Unger.

Richard Glazar described in his book the packing of victims' clothes for shipment to Germany, and how the gold from teeth was extracted and, together with coins and jewelry, added to the German loot.

Richard Glazar went on to study in Prague, Paris and London, and received a degree in economics.

Richard Glazar helped Michael Peters, the founder of the Aktion Reinhard Camps, build a model of Treblinka.

Richard Glazar committed suicide on December 20,1997, by jumping out of a window in Prague after the death of his wife, leaving the model unfinished.