Trebic, South Moravia, Sept 23 (CTK) – A plaque commemorating Antonin Kalina, who saved at least 900 Jewish boys from death in the Buchenwald concentration camp during World War Two, was unveiled in his native town Trebic Wednesday.
The plaque is placed on the former Jewish school building.
To save the children, Kalina used his position as a camp inmate in charge of a bloc of buildings, by which he risked his life.
“He fixed up a sign on the building in which the children were placed, saying there is a typhoid quarantine. As a result, the Germans feared to enter it,” Trebic Mayor Pavel Janata told CTK.
Kalina also made use of the fact that no central registry of the camp inmates existed after the bombing of Buchenwald in 1944.
The plaque with a text in three languages is made of an imitation of bronze.
The costs of 24,000 crowns have been covered by the town.
Kalina, who moved from Trebic to Prague shortly after the war, died at the age of 88 in 1990.
Three years ago, Israel bestowed the Righteous Among the Nations title on him.
In 2014, he was named an honorary citizen of Trebic in memoriam. In the same year, President Milos Zeman bestowed the Medal of Merit on him.
