1926 – 1973
Paul was the son of Arnost and Zdenka Vrba. He was born in Prague, at a time when the city was an exciting and very enjoyable place to be living. Paul and his older sister, Eva, had a comfortable upbringing with a nanny and servants helping to run the household. His father was a successful businessman. His mother Zdenka was the older sister of Franta Frankl ( Mike’s father).
The threat and subsequent invasion of Czecholsovakia by the Nazis ended their comfortable lives. Paul and Eva were sent to England on the Kindertransport trains arranged by Sir Nicholas Winton. When they arrived in England, their uncle Franta Frankl helped look after them. Paul was sent to Framlingham School to get some english education, while Eva probably had to go to work. As soon as he finished school Paul joined the Czech Air Force in exile in the UK and in 1945 was located to Prague where he worked as an interpreter for the American Army. He also discovered that his parents and another uncle and aunt, Jindrich and Marie Fantl had all been murdered during the Holocaust. We believe that it was he, who located Fanni Frankl, his grandmother and his mother’s and Franta Frankl’s mother. She was in hospital after surviving Terezin, but desperately unwell. The family story is that once she had heard that Zdenka and Marie had perished, she gave up the will to live and died a few short weeks later.
Paul returned to England and went to Birmingham University to study chemical engineering. After graduating he decided to continjue his studies in the USA and went to do a Masters. On a visit to New York City he went to a party hosted by a Porges cousin, Susan Kohn and there he met Rita Hoffman. Rita had been born in Prague and her family’s escape from the Nazis via France, is another big story. Rita was a wonderful linguist and worked at the United Nations as a French-English translator.
It didn’t take long for them to fall in love. After they married, they moved to Toronto, where Paul had a job with the British American Oil Company. Their sons Jeremy and Michael were born in 1963 and 1965 respectively.
Mike came to stay with them in 1968 as Paul helped him get a job at the oil refinery in Mississauga as part of his industrial year experience. That started a close family relationship that has been maintained since then. Irene Mautner also stayed with them in 1970.
Very sadly Paul died from pancreatic cancer in October 1973.
