Current data for Contributor

Smither, James (Interviewer)

Current data for Creator

Lux, Melchior

Current data for Date

2016-05-28

Current data for Description

Melchior Lux was born in 1935 in Filipowa, an ethnic German community in Yugoslavia, in 1935. When the German military invaded in 1941, Lux and the Germanic townspeople welcomed the incoming soldiers. His brother joined the German Army and, later, his father was forced into the service in early 1944. When the Germans evacuated in October of 1944, along with his brother and father, Serbian partisans took over, instating rations on supplies, but not food. Lux's mother was forced to undergo manual labor for the partisans and his sister was sent to Russia as a forced laborer. The partisans frequently tortured, beat, and abused their German prisoners and local townspeople. Lux remained imprisoned in the town until December of 1946 when his mother paid a guide to help them escape and flee to Hungary. In the Soviet Zone of Occupation, he acquired a passport and was eventually permitted into the American Zone, settling into Passau where his uncle lived. He worked as a welder until he earned his Journeyman's Card and filed paperwork for emigration to the United States, leaving Germany in 1956.

Current data for Source

Veterans History Project collection, RHC-27