I felt as a Czech who has Jewishness in addition
Petr Deiml was born on September 28, 1950 in Prague to parents who have survived the holocaust. He has an older brother and a younger sister. His father Jiří Deiml came from Plasy near Pilsen and his mother Erika Rothová, nicknamed Ečka, came from Ostrava and both were members of Zionist organizations. Petr‘s father worked in a foreign trade company and later as a purchaser for a company, and his mother worked as the head of a haematology laboratory. Petr Deiml studied at a grammar school in Prague and he spent his free time in a boat dock and with a group of Jewish youth called Children of Maiselovka. The family decided to emigrate in 1968 after the invasion of Warsaw Pact armies to Czechoslovakia. In late August 1968 they went to Vienna and from there they travelled to Israel. They lived in Tel Aviv where Petr continued with his studies. In 1970 he passed his final graduation exam from grammar school and in 1970-1973 he did his compulsory military service. In 1973 Petr took part in the Yom Kippur War. After his return to civilian life he studied biology in Jerusalem and later he transferred to the study of medicine. From 1974 onward he lived in Germany where he studied biotechnology and he remained here even after the completion of his studies. In 1977 he married and he worked as a biotechnologist. In 1983, after nine years in Germany, he and his wife decided to return to Israel. He regularly visits the Czech Republic since 1989 and he meets friends from the Children of Maiselovka. Petr Deiml lives in Kiryat Tivon.