Hugo Gryn

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...

Reform Judaism in the United Kingdom in one of the two forms of Progressive Judaism found in the United Kingdom, the other being Liberal Judaism. Reform Judaism is both historically earlier and more traditionalist than Liberal Judaism....

Rabbi is the term in Judaism for a religious teacher. The word rabbi derives from the Hebrew root word , rav, which in biblical Hebrew means ‘great’ in many senses, including "revered." The word comes from the Semitic root R-B-B, and is cognate to Arabic ربّ rabb, meaning "lord" Rabbi ' onMouseout='HidePop("40197")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Carpathian_Ruthenia">Carpathian Ruthenia

Carpathian Ruthenia

Carpathian Ruthenia, aka Transcarpathian Ruthenia, Transcarpathian Ukraine, Zakarpattia, Rusinko, Subcarpathian Rus, Subcarpathia is a small region in Central Europe, now...

, which was then in Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

.

Gryn’s family were interned in Auschwitz in 1944. Hugo and his mother survived but his brother and father both died. Gryn came to Britain in 1946 and studied Mathematics at Cambridge. After training as a rabbi in America, he served in one of the largest congregations in Europe, the West London Synagogue

West London Synagogue

The West London Synagogue of British Jews was established on the 15 April 1840, and is among the Oldest synagogues in the United Kingdom and the oldest reform synagogue in Great Britain.-History:...

 for 32 years.

Gryn became a regular radio broadcaster and appeared for many years on BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4

BBC Radio 4 is a domestic UK radio station that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967.-Outline:...

's "Thought for the Day" and "The Moral Maze". He died on 18 August 1996. He was described as "probably the most beloved rabbi in Great Britain" by Rabbi Albert Friedlander, who was also the author of the entry about Gryn in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

In 1989, Gryn returned to Berehovo together with his daughter Naomi to make a film about his childhood . After his death, Naomi Gryn edited his autobiography, also called Chasing Shadows , which deals movingly with his experiences as a holocaust survivor.