Eric Strach: Personal papers

Eric (né Erich) Strach was born on 21 October 1914 in Brno, now in Czechia. His parents Cornelius and Helene (née Bachrich) were from Brno and Austerlitz respectively. They married in 1911. He had two sisters: Alice (b. 27/03/1912; d. 21/04/1912 ) and Ilse (b. 17/03/1913). They lived above the umbrella shop in Brno set up by Eric’s grandfather, where Cornelius also worked. Cornelius served in the First World War. Eric went to a Jewish school and attended the Maccabi youth group; the family went to the large shul in Brno. Eric then studied medicine in Prague. After a year in a hospital in Brno, Eric moved to France when a family he had met on holiday there invited him to stay; because of the Munich Agreement, his parents encouraged him not to return home. On the outbreak of war, he volunteered for the army and started working at Sanitorium de Dreux. On 6 June 1940, Eric travelled to Agde to join the Czechoslovak army. At Sète he boarded the ‘Mohamed Ali El Kebir’ to go to Liverpool via Gibraltar. In the UK, Eric was stationed in Cholmondeley Park and then Leamington Spa. He drove an ambulance during the Coventry Blitz. In June 1941, Eric opted for civilian service in a hospital. He worked in Chorley, then Wigan and after that Alder Hey. In Wigan he met Margaret Forshaw, a teacher, whom he married in January 1945. At the end of the war, Eric volunteered to go to Theresienstadt, where he dealt with cases of typhoid, TB and malnutrition. He discovered his parents had been killed along with his sister and her two children. He also worked with refugees in Ústí nad Labem and with the help of JOINT in Prague prevented refugees from being deported to Poland Eric returned to England for the birth of his first child in October 1945, taking up work in Wigan again. He naturalised in 1947. He became a surgeon and, in 1956, was appointed consultant in St Helens. Eric retired in 1979, but continued to work as a locum, a medical officer in a special school and in private medical legal work.

Donor: Angela Strach