He was not allowed to attend high school because he was Jewish, so he studied at home by candlelight. During WWII, he was working as a cabinetmaker's apprentice when he was drafted into a forced-labor unit in the Hungarian army and sent to the Eastern Front. He and and four other Jews eventually escaped into the Hungarian forest. With military police searching for deserters, they found a hut, hid under piles of hay, and were discovered by a farmer, Istvan Novak, who sheltered them.