Oskar Löwy was born on 23 April 1915 in Pilsen, graduated from high school and went to Prague to study law.
His studies were interrupted by the occupation in March 1939. He married Gertruda Munchova and went on an alleged honeymoon to Italy from which he never returned home. He and his wife first opened a grocery store in Nîmes in the south of France, then Oskar joined the Czechoslovak army in exile and left for England with a convoy. As a radio operator, he participated in several battles of World War II.
At the end of the war, he returned to Pilsen as a liberator; except for one of his cousins, none of his relatives who remained in the Protectorate survived. Together with his younger brother Rudolf, who was also a fighter in the Czechoslovak army in exile, they restored their father's grocery store and the family farm.
After the communists came to power, Oskar and Gertruda, this time with two daughters, fled their homeland for the second time. They lived in Israel for seven years, and emigrated to the United States in late 1955. Oskar Löwy died on 22 April 1992 in Washington, DC.
His children donated Oskar's photographs capturing the liberation of Pilsen to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Copyright: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Provenance: Oscar Lowy