Holocaust survivor who called himself 'The Happiest Man on Earth' dies at 101

• Published date: 13 October 2021
• Author: GABE FRIEDMAN/JTA
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

He had suffered a heart attack a few months earlier, J-Wire reported.

Jaku earned tributes from an array of Australian political figures, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg, whose Jewish mother survived the Holocaust in Hungary.

"Australia has lost a giant," Frydenberg said in a statement. "Scarred by the past, he only looked forward. May his story be told for generations to come."

Jaku was born Abraham "Adi" Jakubowiez in Leipzig, Germany. He earned a high school engineering degree that he said later helped him survive in Nazi concentration camps, since his slave labor was valuable, according to the Associated Press.

He was sent to multiple camps, including Buchenwald and Auschwitz, and escaped from what he suspected was a death march in the latter as Allied soldiers approached.

Jaku married his Jewish wife Flore in Belgium in 1946 — she survived the war by pretending to be Christian — and they immigrated to Australia in 1950, eventually going into the real estate business together. Jaku went on to volunteer and talk to high school students and other visitors to the Sydney Jewish Museum.

"Eddie's impact will be felt for generations to come," the museum wrote in a statement posted to social media.

Jaku said that after...