Georges Mora - Early Life

Early Life

Mora was born Gunter Morawski in 1913 in Leipzig, Germany of Jewish/Polish heritage. As a young medical student Mora became a member of a communist cell and fled Germany to Paris in 1930. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, Georges left Paris to join the cause. After a plane crash, he was a prisoner of war for a short time. He was active in the French Resistance in World War II, using the alias Georges Morand. After the War, Georges worked as a patent dealer and became the director of a Jewish rehabilitation home for children run by Œuvre de Secours aux Enfants (OSE) in Paris. Later In 1947 he married Parisian artist and fellow Jewish refugee Mirka Zelik, becoming a French citizen.