Imre Rábai

Born: Unknown 1926, Mezőkovácsháza, Hungary

Imre's father was a carpenter. He opened a furniture factory in Szeged and the family moved to there from Mezőkovácsháza. Imre started his studies at the Jewish elementary school in Szeged and continued at the Gábor Klauzál High School where his displayed outstanding talent in mathematics. His first experience with "numerus clausus" (closed number) was his rejected application to the Chemical Technical School. He was an active and devoted member of the Jewish scout movement. After Jewish scouts groups were excluded from the national Hungarian scouts movement the Jewish group, including Imre, continued to meet illegally.

Between 1941-44 he attended Gábor Baross High School and one month before his 18th birthday he was conscripted for forced labor. Imre was forced to work for 12 hours a day at a construction site at the Mühldorf camp. He was liberated along with the few survivors of the camp on April 30, 1945. He went on to pass his final exam in December 1945 after which he worked as a madrich (educator) at a Jewish orphanage. He later became a mathemathics teacher and became a renowned educator; many of his students went on to be among the best mathematicians in the world. "When at a Jewish cemetery, I always visit the mass graves. My father is in such a mass grave... I see the mass grave of the young forced laborers, they were born the same year as I was, they were from the same region... my first visit I always pay to them...”