"So then I let my dad know I was missing my diploma and my dad tried to send it to me, but unfortunately they knew we were in contact and found it. They blamed my dad and so they locked him up, but only for a couple of weeks. They put a spy in jail and Dad talked about suicide in front of him if they didn't let him out. Apparently he sent it on, so they let it go and then let dad go."
"I went to the Americans, I took a chance. There was a jarhead standing in front of the building, and I told him I was Czech and wanted to get to America. He let me in, there was someone there to question me and his first question was if I was a conscript. I said of course I was. He asked which unit I had served in and I said the General Staff, so he said they were interested in me. He told me to go outside and he sent for somebody else and he said, 'Go right outside and this guy will pick you up in a car in 3 blocks.' So I did and I didn't even realize it and so I joined the Americans. I didn't even dare to go back."
"There was a coal ship carrying coal from Newcastle to the south of France. On that ship they ordered Czech soldiers to be taken to England. We went to the port with my father and his then girlfriend Lotte. There were Czech soldiers guarding the ramp as you walked onto the ship. I got on first and then I saw my father arguing with the Czech officers because they didn't want to let Lotte go as well because she was German. Then I saw my dad give Lotte all the money and quickly jump on the boat after me."
Petr Loubal was born on 5 December 1932 as Petr Schwarz, the only son of a Jewish marriage. His parents divorced before the beginning of the war. With the onset of Nazism and after the occupation of Czechoslovakia, his father Edmund Schwarz lost his law practice and offered his ex-wife Gertrude Weiss to get his son to safety. They lived in the French capital until the German occupation of Paris, then fled to the south of France and from there to England. The witness‘s father worked as a law expert in Beneš‘s government-in-exile. In England, the witness went to school with the so-called Winton children. After the war his father was employed by the Ministry of the Interior. Petr Loubal graduated from the Czech Technical University in Prague and in 1959, while on holiday in Egypt, he visited the American Embassy and applied for asylum. The Americans took him first to Germany, then allowed him to travel to the USA. He studied transportation engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, where he worked until his retirement. After the Velvet Revolution he supplied computers to Czechoslovakia. He was married three times and has 4 children. In 2023, he was living in his home in El Cerrito, California. He died on August 30, 2025.
Moment from the trip to Egypt, from where the witness emigrated, on the photo Ljuba Pindryčová, the guide who took care of the participants of the trip, 1959
Moment from the trip to Egypt, from where the witness emigrated, on the photo Ljuba Pindryčová, the guide who took care of the participants of the trip, 1959
Petr Loubal with his family in the USA, Christmas, 1970s, from right: his sons Denis and Thomas, Petr Loubal, his father Edmund Schwarz, his wife Elizabeth Schwarz and his third son Andrew
Petr Loubal with his family in the USA, Christmas, 1970s, from right: his sons Denis and Thomas, Petr Loubal, his father Edmund Schwarz, his wife Elizabeth Schwarz and his third son Andrew
Věra Aubrechtová, cousin of Petr Loubal, arrested by the Gestapo for resistance activities, died in Auschwitz, here in national costume as a high school girl
Věra Aubrechtová, cousin of Petr Loubal, arrested by the Gestapo for resistance activities, died in Auschwitz, here in national costume as a high school girl
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