Peter Hajnal was born July 23, 1936 in Budapest, Hungary. He is a Holocaust survivor who lived through Nazi Germany’s occupation of Hungary, the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross’s takeover of the country’s government, the ghetto and a children’s shelter in Budapest run by Hungarian Nazi sympathizers. Peter’s father died of heart disease in the early days of the war, and many members of his family were murdered in the Holocaust. Peter’s mother was able to obtain schutzpasses for herself and her two sons, which afforded them a degree of protection.  Still, he saw the suffering and deportations, and experienced the hunger and degradation of the time.  Peter lost his brother during his time at the children’s shelter; Peter was in the basement of the shelter during the siege of Budapest, and he was starving and in very poor health, and unable to move.  His little brother was living in a different part of the shelter, and he simply disappeared and the family was unable to locate him or to learn anything about his fate.  Having survived the war Peter and his mother left Budapest, and they stayed with an uncle who had also survived.  Peter returned to school, and the family began to move on.  Peter came to Canada in early 1957 as a refugee after the defeat of the 1956 Hungarian uprising:  he was able to escape via Austria, and he arrived in Montreal during a cold month of May.  He presently lives in Toronto and is a retired librarian and professor at the University of Toronto. Peter also worked for 10 years at the United Nations in New York, and he has published extensively about international organizations, authoring and editing 11 books, and writing a number of journal articles and book chapters. Peter has spoken about his Holocaust experience for the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre and for the Shoah Foundation.  Crestwood students were able to interview him at Baycrest in December 2024.