Alexander Bachnár

Alexander Bachnár 

Journalist Alexander Bachnár (Bachner) was born on July 29, 1919 in Topoľčany, Czechoslovakia to Jakub and Františka Bachner. His father was a painter and mother was a homemaker. They had ten children. After finishing primary school in his hometown, Bachnár began to study at the Piarist Gymnasium in Nitra. After six months he transferred to high school in Prievidza, where he graduated in 1938. After graduation, Bachnár attended the Pedagogical School in Bratislava on Lazaretská Street. Due to his Jewish origins, he was excluded from the school in March 1939. In February 1940 he was drafted into the VI. Labour Battalion and later was assigned to a labor camp for Jews in Nováky. In camp he did manual work at first, but later taught children. After the escape of his fellow prisoner Weiser from the camp, Bachnár served as director of the camp primary school. Soon after the beginning of Slovak National Uprising and the subsequent liquidation of the Nováky Labor Camp at the end of August 1944, Bachnár joined the uprising. As a platoon commander of the Jewish partisan group he took part in the fighting in central Slovakia. After the Second World War Bachnár worked as editor of the military newspaper Bojovník from 1945 until 1949. In 1949 he moved to the Pravda printing house and worked there as an editor for two years. As a result of the political process (with the group of Rudolf Slánsky) Bachnár was released from Pravda in 1951. For two years he worked again as a manual labour – as a welder in the Juraj Dimitrov chemical plant in Bratislava. In 1953 he became an editor, then secretary and later again the editor of foreign affairs in the daily Práca. In 1969, he was again fired from the editorial staff and subsequently – as a"right-wing anti-socialist elemen" – he was expelled from the Communist Party. During the period 1969-1976 he was an editor at the Institute of Health Education. On June 30, 1976 he retired. He was married and had three children. 

Alexander Bachnár