Andrew Laszlo was born in Papa, Hungary in 1926. As a young man, he was a great athlete competing on junior national teams in figure skating and fencing, preparing for the Olympic games. All of this changed in March of 1944, when the Germans invaded Hungary and Andrew’s family was relocated to the Papa ghetto. In June of 1944, he and his brother were sent to labor camps. In July, his mother was deported to Auschwitz where she perished.
Andrew’s father survived imprisonment in Auschwitz before being sent to Buchenwald and back to Auschwitz again. From Auschwitz, he survived a 100 mile Death March to Theresienstadt. Meanwhile, Andrew escaped the labor camp but was eventually captured and sent to Bergen-Belsen. He saw his brother once in Belsen, but his brother did not survive. In March of 1945, Andrew was deported to Theresienstadt where he found his father shortly before his father died of Typhus. After Theresienstadt’s liberation, Andrew returned to Papa. Finding that none of his family survived and his non-Jewish friends wanted little to do with him, he decided to go to America. He made his way to the displaced persons camp in Ulm, Germany.
Andrew arrived in New York Harbor on January 17, 1947. He became a famous cinematographer, making films such as Shogun, The Warriors, and First Blood (Rambo). In later life, he was honored at the nation’s capital lighting a candle alongside Elie Wiesel for Holocaust Days of Remembrance. He eventually wrote a memoir of his experiences called Footnote to History: From Hungary to America, The Memoir of a Holocaust Survivor.
Andrew Laszlo Jr. was born and raised in Roslyn, New York. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth College before moving to Montana. His maternal great- grandfather, an indentured servant who arrived in America circa 1868, settled in Butte, Montana, and helped establish one of the state’s earliest Jewish congregations. Andrew Jr. had a successful 42-year career at Morgan Stanley, retiring as an Executive Director in the Wealth Management Division.
