Jan Otto Hajnal

Jan Otto Hajnal was born in 1919, in Zilina, today Slovakia. His father, who owned a business selling flour and grain, suggested he study milling engineering. At the age of 18, Jan left Zilina and went to Paris to the French School of Milling, graduating in 1938. When France declared war on Germany, Jan was determined to contribute to the struggle against the Nazi regime, and in January 1940 he enlisted as a volunteer in the French Army, in a Czechoslovak Unit. He entered combat on June 6 th, 1940, and fought in the Loire River region until the Armistice, on June 22nd, 1940. He was Corporal of the 10th Company, 3rd Battalion of the Second Regiment of Czechoslovak Infantry Volunteers. The Armistice made Jan a war prisoner and was confined to a “labor camp for foreigners”, but being Jewish, this could have constituted the last step before deportation. However, through a fellow student’s father, he received a work contract allowing him to move to Southern France, where he worked in Aix-en-Provence (1940-1941). When the political situation with the arrival of the Gestapo became extremely dangerous, he changed jobs and moved to Grans where he joined the French Resistance (1941-1942). Jan remembered a professional relationship in Argentina, who had been seeking to hire a milling engineer. After over a year’s work obtaining documentation, he received an Argentine work contract and obtained a visa to enter Argentina. While still in Grans, Jan was alerted that the Gestapo was searching for him, so he decided to leave Europe as soon as possible. He escaped illegally into Spain by walking for two days across the Pyrenees Mountains. In September 1942, Jan embarked from Bilbao, Spain to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Jan loved his adopted country, where in 1945 he married Irene Korcarz, a Jewish immigrant from Danzig, today Poland. They had three children and nine grandchildren. As a Jewish immigrant Jan contributed at many levels of Jewish life in Argentina. Jan passed away in Buenos Aires at the age of 75. He remained always grateful for his family and friends, his rewarding life, proud of his Jewish heritage, a Zionist at heart, proud of having served as a soldier in WW II, and grateful for the opportunities to help others.