Juraj Špitzer was born in Krupina, Slovakia and before WWII studied briefly at the medical school in Prague. He was a prisoner at the Nováky labor camp in 1942-1944. In autumn 1944, he joined the joined the Slovak National Uprising, in which he commanded a Jewish partisan unit. After the war, he studied philosophy and French at Comenius University in Bratislava. He was a writer, screenwriter and commentator. In the 1950s and 1960s, he served as editor-in-chief of Kultúrny život (Cultural Life), which was critical about the prevailing political conditions in Czechoslovakia. Špitzer co-organized the fourth congress of the Czechoslovak Writers’ Union in 1967, at which the Communist leadership was openly criticized. After 1969, he was politically isolated and could not publish. Špitzer was the author of several novels, including White Clouds, I Belong to You and Summer Sunday, as well as several film scripts. After the fall of communism, he published his autobiographical novel I Did Not Want to Be a Jew.

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