On January 20, 2024, Robert Ratonyi will share the story of his life as a Holocaust survivor of Budapest, Hungary at the Atlanta World War II Round Table meeting. The meeting takes place at Dunwoody United Methodist Church on Mount Vernon Road in Dunwoody. RSVP is required to attend this meeting which includes social time, lunch, and speaker’s presentation. Visit Atlanta World War II Round Table for more information.
Robert Ratonyi was born in Budapest, Hungary in January 1938. Nazi Germany annexed Austria into the Third Reich in March of 1938 and Kristallnacht, Nights of the Broken Glass, took place in November of 1938.
Ratonyi’s father was conscripted into a Jewish labor battalion in 1942 and his son never saw him again. In 1944, Germany invaded Hungary and the Jews of Budapest were placed in a walled off ghetto. Ratonyi’s mother was deported to an Austrian concentration camp and a terrified, six-year-old Ratonyi was forced to wear a yellow star to identify that he was a Jew. He was taken to live with his grandparents, two of their daughters (of 10 children) and his cousins.
Following the end of the war, Ratonyi was reunited with his mother, who had survived the concentration camp. In October of 1956 Ratonyi was a freshman at the Technical University of Budapest when the Hungarian uprising occurred. He escaped to Austria and was in Canada by February of 1957.
Ratonyi, began a new life in Montreal, Canada, working and continuing his education. He went to the United States in 1961 to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a Bachelor and Masters degree in engineering from MIT.
After completing his education, Ratonyi worked for General Electric, Exxon, and Xerox. He came to Atlanta with his wife and two children in 1978. He became Vice President of Contel Corporation, which is now part of Verizon.
As a survivor of the Holocaust, Ratonyi now shares his story with groups of middle and high school children, as well as adult audiences. He has presented at The William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum and other venues. He wrote a book about his life experiences, “From Darkness into Light: My Journey through Nazism, Fascism, and Communism to Freedom,” published January 12, 2022.
Hilbert Margol, World War II veteran and Dachau Nazi concentration camp liberator, will introduce Ratonyi at the meeting. For more detail about the January 20 Atlanta WWII Roundtable meeting, visit their website at atlantawwiiroundtable.org.
Holocaust Memorial Day is January 27, 2024, a day to remember the victims of the Holocaust and other genocides.