Ctibor Rybár (1920–2013)

Ctibor Rybár was born Tibor Fischer to a Jewish family in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia. His parents were Stefania and Zigmund Fischer. As a young man, he joined the Zionist movement Hashomer Hatzair and became a leader of the organization. In 1941, he was sent to a forced labor battalion in eastern Slovakia, but was released after six months on the basis of a false medical report. With the help of friends from the Zionist movement, he crossed the border into Hungary and lived under several false identities in Budapest. He was arrested in 1942, but escaped from the transport at the last minute. His parents and younger brother Pavel were deported to Nazi extermination camps and murdered. In late 1943, he was arrested again and imprisoned until December 1944, when he was released on the basis of forged papers from the Jewish resistance. Until the end of World War II, he stayed in one of Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg's protected houses. In 1945, he changed his name to Ctibor Rybár and settled in Prague. There he studied law at Charles University and after graduation went to work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a diplomat. From 1948 to 1951, he served as legation secretary at the Czech embassy in Ankara, Turkey, and then as consul general in Istanbul. In 1952, he caught up in the wave of arrests and interrogations in connection with the Communist party purge and show trial of Rudolf Slánský. Although Rybár was later released, his diplomatic career was over. He got a job with the Olympia publishing house, where he rose to become editor-in-chief from the 1960s to 1984. He also wrote numerous books, including guides to Prague and Czechoslovakia that were translated into English, German, Italian, French, Russian, Polish, and other languages. In 1991, he published the landmark Jewish Prague: Guide to the Monuments, Notes on History and Culture, the first book to map the history of Jews in Prague. His autobiography Do půlnoci času dost (English translation, Plenty of Time Until Midnight) was published in 2008.