Guido Zembsch-Schreve was born in Bern on 17 May 1916 to a Dutch family temporarily in Switzerland and grew up in a liberal, cosmopolitan environment. After studying in New York he worked for a shipping company in Philadelphia and was transferred to Antwerp, where he witnessed Jewish refugees’ desperation after the German invasion in 1940. Escaping via France, Spain and Portugal, he reached the United States but chose to volunteer for a Dutch unit forming in Canada. Trained in Britain as a paratrooper and resistance agent, he was dropped into occupied France in 1943 and coordinated contacts between the Paris Resistance and London. In 1944 his network was infiltrated; he was arrested, tortured, and deported to Buchenwald, Dora-Mittelbau and Ravensbrück. He survived the camps and later escaped from a death march.
