Robert Norton family papers

Robert Norton (formerly Robert Joachim Neubauer) was born in Teplitz Schönau (Teplice Sanov) in what was known as the Sudetenland, northern Czechoslovakia in 1932 into a well to do middle class Jewish family. His mother’s extended family had lived in the area for 250-300 years. His father was born into poverty in Budapest where he lived with his widowed mother and sister until the age of 15. In order to find work he went north to within the borders of the Austro-Hungarian empire to Teplitz. He served an apprenticeship in a local knitwear business and after serving in the 1914-1918 war in a Hungarian regiment, retrurned to Bohemia and with a friend started a successful knitwear company. On the creation of the new Czechoslovakian state he refused the new nationality, preferring to remain Hungarian. On marrying Robert’s mother she acquired Hungarian nationality as did Robert at his birth. 

Robert’s mother’s father was a medical doctor, a director of the local spa and a trustee in the local synagogue. His brothers were a lawyer and two pre-war immigrants to the USA. Hungarian nationality conferred more privileges on them than Jews with Czech nationality. 

The family moved to Podebrady and then Prague until the 1939 invasion of the rest of the Czech lands. In late June early July the family obtained visas to the USA and a transit visa to the UK, which was made easier on account of their Hungarian nationality. They left Prague by train to Budapest and after a week proceeded by train via Austria, Germany and Holland to the UK where they arrived at the end of July 1939.