Boltežar (Cvetko) Kobal - Slovenia
“When you arrive in camp with an idea for which you have fought earlier on and you see that this had made sense, you get some kind of moral support.”
1921 born in Škofja Loka (Slovenia); grows up in a communist oriented family, the father is bricklayer and painter, attends high school in Ljubljana, member of the communist youth movement (Skoj)
1941 after the German occupation he works for the in German administration in Kranj / Krain as a spy of the communist liberation front
January 1942 arrested
April/May 1942 deportation to Auschwitz
June 1942 transport to Mauthausen, where he is compelled to forced labour in the quarries of Gusen and Mauthausen as well as in the “Lagerbaukommando”
December 1943 transfer to Linz, forced labour in a sugar refinery
April 1944 together with a fellow prisoner escape from the camp, returns to Slovenia and joins again the partisan movement
June 1944 he writes a brochure about Mauthausen which is printed and distributed by the partisans
after 1945 studies in economics at the Ljubljana University, afterwards he starts a political career
1965 undersecretary for economic affairs in Belgrade
from 1969 member of the Yugoslavian parliament, afterwards governor of the national bank in Slovenia
until 1990 works in the Slovenian Council for economic development and politics
At the time of the interview he lived in Ljubljana (Slovenia)
Cvetko Kobal died on 4 February 2010