Ian Robert Maxwell MC (10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991) was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament (MP), who rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire.
Robert Maxwell was born Ján Ludvík Hoch in the small town of Slatinské Doly, Carpathian Ruthenia, the easternmost province of pre-World War II Czechoslovakia (now Solotvino, Ukraine) into a poor Yiddish-speaking Jewish family. His parents wer...
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Ian Robert Maxwell MC (10 June 1923 – 5 November 1991) was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament (MP), who rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire.
Robert Maxwell was born Ján Ludvík Hoch in the small town of Slatinské Doly, Carpathian Ruthenia, the easternmost province of pre-World War II Czechoslovakia (now Solotvino, Ukraine) into a poor Yiddish-speaking Jewish family. His parents were Mechel Hoch, and Hannah Slomowitz. He had 8 siblings. In 1939, the area was reclaimed by Hungary. Most members of his family were killed after Hungary was occupied in 1944 by its former ally, Nazi Germany but he had already escaped, arriving in Britain in 1940 as a 17-year-old refugee. He joined the British Army Pioneer Corps in 1941 and transferred to the North Staffordshire Regiment in 1943. He fought his way across Europe from the Normandy beaches, at which time he was still a sergeant, to Berlin. His intelligence and gift for languages...
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