Jona Eliëser Joseph Oberski (born in Amsterdam, 20 March 1938) is a Dutch writer and a nuclear physicist.

Biography

In 1937, a year before his birth, his parents fled from Nazi Germany to the Netherlands and settled in Amsterdam. But during World War II the country was quickly occupied in 1940, and there remained no other route available than the one forced upon all the other Jewish families. The family was transported through Westerbork transit camp to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1943. Jona survived the war, but both his parents died. Oberski was on The Lost Train, a train heading East with no clear destination. The train was captured by the Red Army in Tröbitz. He was taken care of by a foster family. He dedicated his first book Childhood (1978) to his foster parents: "For my foster parents who had quite a time with me."

• Amsterdam, 19 November 1977, 7 p.m. After the war he went to school, passing the Gymnasium-B exam in 1956. Subsequently he studied at the University of Amsterdam (1956-1964), specializing as a nuclear and particle physicist. Oberski is married, having three children. In 1962, he started to work for the National Institute for Subatomic Physics at Amsterdam.

Published works

In 1976-1977 Oberski joined a poetry workshop by Dutch poet Judith Herzberg, after which it occurred to him to write about his own experiences of the Nazi concentration camps. He described the events as seen through the eyes of a small child in his book Kinderjaren (Childhood), which was published in Dutch in 1978 on the advice of Herzberg. Translations have been published in Canada, Denmark, Germany, United Kingdom, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Croatia, Norway, Poland, Spain, USA, Sweden. In 1993 Italian film director Roberto Faenza made a film Jona che visse nella balena (Jonah Who Lived in the Whale) from the book Childhood (Anni d'Infanzia), starring Jean-Hugues Anglade (father), Juliet Aubrey (mother), Luke Petterson (young Jona) and Jenner Del Vecchio (older Jonah) with music by Ennio Morricone. The movie script was written by Oberski, Faenza and Hugh Fleetwood. Later this movie was published on DVD as Look to the sky. Translations were called Jonah Who Lived in the Whale and Jonah der im Wal lebte (German).