“Joining the army was initially something romantic and interesting to me. On the other hand, to share a room with a hundred of other people, to queue for food, toilets or shower, it’s a bit of a nuisance.”
He was born in a family of a film producer, an owner of large production companies Elekta Film, Slavia Film and a co-investor of Film Studios Barrandov. His family moved to Czechoslovakia in 1924. Norbert Auerbach attended a French lyceum in Prague; his father encouraged him to study foreign languages. Nineteen-year-old Norbert knew German, French and English fairly well. His parents decided to move to the United States of America in 1936. However, they left only in 1939 just before the Germans occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia. They were waiting for their visa to the USA but they eventually left for Brazil. They came to the USA only in 1940. Norbert Auerbach finished his high school there and started his university studies. After Pearl Harbor attack he joined the American Army where he served for four years and a half. They disembarked in Normandy three days after D-Day. He served at the west front with the intelligence troop of the American second tank division, with whom he got as far as the Elbe banks. After the war he became famous as a film producer in Columbia Pictures and United Artists. He has lived in Prague since the '90s again.
