Karel Gross was born in Brno on 19 March 1925.
When he was 13 years old, he was enrolled in Kindertransport together with his older brother Hanus. Both boys were first placed on a farm in Warborough where they did manual labour, after which they were sent to a series of agricultural training camps run by the Zionist movement. They were to prepare for life as peasants in Palestine.
However, both were conscripted into the army and became part of the Czechoslovak army. Karel took part in the fighting at Dunkirk, and as a British soldier liberated Czechoslovakia. But he did not want to stay in his native country, none of his family survived. The army, however, was of a different opinion and refused to release him from service on the grounds that he had not served his compulsory military service. The state also retained the property of his murdered parents and other relatives. So Karel returned to England at the first opportunity to try to get his fiancée Eva out of the Communist country. At the last minute, she managed to emigrate to Israel, where she married Karl at Kibbutz Givat Chaim. The two eventually settled in England.
The interview was filmed in London on 20 February 1996.