# Jona Oberski

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.
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

* 1971: An alpha-deuteron correlation experiment on carbon with the multidetector BOL. Ph.D. thesis University of Amsterdam.
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.
* 1978: Kinderjaren. Den Haag: BZZTôH. Autobiography as a child in Dutch.
** 1978: Barneår. Translator: Kirsten Rahbek. København: Tiderne Skifter. In Danish.
** 1978: Kinderjahre Translator: Maria Csollány. München: Heyne. Heyne Allgemeine Reihe 6648. Also Wien: Paul Zsolnay, 1980, and others in German.
** 1978: Lapsuusvuodet. Translator: Heimo Pihlajamaa. Helsinki: Tammi. In Finnish.
** 1981: שנות ילדות :‏ ‏נובלה [Shenot yaldut : Novelah (Childhood years. A novel)]. Translator: Chaim Isak. Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1981. In Hebrew.
** 1982: Anni d'infanzia. Un bambino nei lager. Article on Italian Wikipedia. Translator: Amina Pandolfi. Milano: Mondadori, 1982 (Scrittori Jealiani; E Stranieri). Firenze: La Giuntina, 1996. Collana "Schulim Vogelmann". In Italian.
** 1983: A childhood. A novella (later editions: Childhood). Translator: Ralph Manheim). London; Sydney; Auckland; Toronto: Hodder and Stoughton, 1983 and later. New York; London etc.: Penguin, 2014. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1983. Toronto: Lester & Orpen Dennys, 1984. In English.
** 1983: Anneés d'enfance. Translator: Philippe Noble. Paris: Mercure de France, 1983. Paris: Gallimard, 1992. In French.
** 1984: Barneår. Translator: Tove Alkan. Oslo: Gyldendal, 1984. In Norwegian.
** 1988: Lata dziecinstwa. Translator: Zofia Klimaszewska. Warszawa: Ksiazka i Wiedza, 1988. In Polish.
** 1991: Παιδικά χρόνια [Paidika chronia] by Γιόνα Ὀμπέρσκι [Gióna Ompérski]. Translator: M. Ioannídou. Athéna: Dórikos, 1991. In Greek.
** 1994: Jónás a cethal gyomrában. Translator: Mihály Falvay. Budapest: Makkabi. In Hungarian.
** 1994: [Chairudofuddo] Translator: Toshiki Taguchi. Tokyo Kinema Junposha, 1994. In Japanese.
** 2009: Masa Kanak-kanak. Translator: Laurens Sipahelut. Jakarta: Pena Wormer, 2009. In Indonesian.
** 2017: [Piladina]. Odia. Translator: Mousumi Acharya, K.K. Mohapatra. Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India: Four Corners, 2017. In Hindi [?].
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).
* 1995: De ongenode gast (translated title: The Uninvited Visitor). Den Haag: BZZTôH. Novel in Dutch.
* 1997: De eigenaar van niemandsland (translated title:The Proprietor of No Mans Land). Den Haag: BZZTôH. ISBN 9789055014446. Novel in Dutch.
* 2022: Strengel, Amsterdam, Ambo|Anthos, ISBN 9789026360992, 9026360991, OCLC 1343957247. Novel in Dutch.
* columns and articles in several Dutch magazines.