Eddie Jaku

Edward Jaku (born Abraham Salomon Jakubowicz; 14 April 1920 – 12 October 2021 ) was a survivor of several German concentration camps during World War II who wrote of his wartime experiences after emigrating to Australia. His memoir, called The Happiest Man on Earth, was published when he was 100 years old. It became an immediate best seller. Eddie had a sister Johanna (Henni) who also survived the Holocaust, and he changed his name to Edward (Eddie) as a tribute to his sister, who called him Eddie as an affectionate nickname.

Biography Jaku recounts that as a boy in Leipzig, Germany, he truly believed that he was part of "the most enlightened, the most cultured, the most sophisticated society in the whole world". His outlook changed following the rise of the Nazis, when he was initially expelled from his school for being Jewish. His father organised an alias for him with false ID papers, and he was sent to an engineering college far away from Leipzig for his own safety. One night in 1938, he came back to visit for his parents' wedding anniversary only to find the house deserted. It was the night of the antisemitic pogrom, Kristallnacht, and he was taken from his bed by stormtroopers and sent to a concentration camp in Buchenwald. Here a former classmate recognised him and recommended him to the camp's leaders as a skilled tool maker. He was released to go and work in a factory, but his father managed to intercept him and they escaped as refugees to Belgium. He has given invited lectures about his life experiences, including to members of the Australian Defence Force Academy in 2017, and in 2019 to a TEDxSydney.

An obituary was published by the BBC.

Death Jaku died in Sydney on 12 October 2021, aged 101.

His wife Flore died on 2 July 2022, also in Sydney, at age 98.

Adaptations

An adaptation for the stage of The Happiest Man on Earth, by Mark St. Germain, premiered in 2023 at Barrington Stage Company, and was presented at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in 2024.

Honours Association Award Year Results Australian Government Medal of the Order of Australia 2013 New South Wales Government Australian Senior of the Year 2020 Australian Publishers Association Australian Book Industry Award (for The Happiest Man on Earth) 2021