My father, Otto Grunfeld, who has died aged 90, was a survivor of the Holocaust, in which his entire family were killed. Born in rural Czechoslovakia, where his parents, Moritz and Hilda (nee Lobovics), had a smallholding and soda factory, he was the younger of two sons. His older brother, Paul, was a great influence on him: Paul played the violin and Otto began the piano.
As the Nazis’ influence grew, the parents tried in vain to send their two children to Israel, and then in 1942 came the forced movement of Jews from Prague to Theresienstadt concentration camp. Otto worked in the bakery and Paul in the gardens, smuggling food to others. The brothers heard there of the murder of their parents, and Otto suffered a severe mental collapse.
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