Denmark
Steen Axel Metz was born on 5 May 1935 in Odense, Denmark, into a Jewish family. He grew up in a largely assimilated household with his parents, Axel, a lawyer, and Magna. Germany occupied Denmark in April 1940, but the family initially continued a relatively ordinary life. That changed on 2 October 1943, when eight-year-old Steen and his parents were arrested and deported to Theresienstadt (Terezín).
After a journey in overcrowded railway wagons, Steen was placed with his mother, while his father lived in separate accommodation and performed exhausting physical labour. Axel died of starvation and malnutrition less than six months after their arrival, aged forty. Magna worked processing mica and struggled to obtain enough food for herself and her son. Parcels sent from Denmark later became an important source of food, clothing and vitamins, but arrived too late to save Axel.
Steen and his mother endured eighteen months in Terezín. On 15 April 1945, they were evacuated with other Danish prisoners aboard the White Buses organised by the Swedish Red Cross, reaching safety before the war ended. They subsequently returned to Odense, where Steen resumed his education at his former school. He later completed commercial studies in Copenhagen.
His career in the food industry took him from Denmark to England and Canada. In Toronto, he met and married Eileen, before moving to the United States in 1962 and raising two daughters in Deerfield, Illinois.
← Back to all stories