Branko Lustig - Early Life

Early Life

Lustig was born in Osijek, Croatia, (at that time Kingdom of Yugoslavia), to a Croatian Jewish family. His father, Mirko, was head-waiter at a Osijek Café Central, and his mother, Vilma, was a housewife. Lustig's grandparents, unlike his parents, were religious and he regularly attended town Synagogue with them. During World War II, as a child he was imprisoned for two years in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Most members of his family perished in the death camps throughout Europe, including his grandmother who was killed in the gas chamber, while his father was killed in Čakovec by Hungarians on March 15, 1945. Lustig mother survived the Holocaust and was reunited with him after the war. On the day of the liberation Lustig weighted only 66 pounds. Lustig credited his survival in Auschwitz to a German officer that, coincidentally, was from the same Osijek suburb and knew Lustig's father. He overheard Lustig crying in Croatian and asked him who his father was.