Magic at War

A fledgling circus magician narrowly escapes the infamous Novi Sad raid in January 1942, where the Hungarian military massacred 4,000 Jewish, Serbian and other civilians to covet favour with Nazi Germany. Miraculously, he survived and went on to create the most spectacular magic-based circus show in Latin America. A circus magician   For over five decades, the name Circo Tihany was as famous in Latin America as the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circuses were in North America. It was the most successful travelling show on the continent.   The show was conceived and developed by Franz Czeisler (aka The Great Tihany), a magician and illusionist who built it from its early origins as an extended magic act into a spectacular variety circus.     Franz ( Hungarian : Ferenc) Czeisler was born on 29 June 1916, in   Kétegyháza , Hungary (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire).     He received a few lessons from German magician Alfredo Uferini as a ch...

Refugees from the Nazi regime began arriving in Britain long before war was declared on 3 September 1939. Many of these were Jews, escaping rising anti-Semitism and Hitler's persecution of their race. In November 1938, following a rise in violent attacks against Germany's Jewish population, the British Government changed its immigration laws. Realising it needed to respond to a humanitarian crisis, the government decided to allow the temporary admission of unaccompanied Jewish children.  Many of the children's parents had been killed by the Nazi regime, or sent to concentration camps. Some parents were still alive, but had sent their children away in the hope that the youngsters would have a better chance of survival away from Germany. Known as Kindertransport , this unprecedented scheme led to 10,000 mainly Jewish children entering the U.K. from Nazi Germany, Nazi-occupied Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and the Free City of Danzig. Other children that came were ‘non-Aryan...