Joža Karas (1926–2008)

Josef "Joža" Karas was born to a Czech family in Warsaw, Poland, where his father worked for the Czech government. He began playing the violin at a young age and studied at the Prague Conservatory. He fled the Communist takeover of his country in 1949 and emigrated to the USA, settling in Bloomfield, Connecticut. He taught at the Hartt School of Music and performed with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra for more than 50 years. Beginning in 1970, he dedicated many years to searching for lost music composed by Jews in the Nazi concentration camp at Terezin (Theresienstadt) in Czechoslovakia during World War II.
Among these was Hans Krása's children's opera, Brundibar. Karas conducted the North American premiere of Brundibar in Czech in 1975 and in English in 1977 in a translation made by him and his first wife, Milada Javora. In 1985, he published the book Music in Terezin, 1941-1945.