Thursday is Frank Shatz Day.
It’s the day that he turns 100, and all this week, he’s being recognized in big ways.
A longtime columnist for The Virginia Gazette, Shatz is a Holocaust survivor. Born in 1926 to a well-to-do-family from Parkan, a small border town between Czechoslovakia and Hungary, Shatz and his family were at first relatively untouched by anti-Jewish laws … until they weren’t.
Many of his family members — his mother, sister, a baby niece, aunts, uncles — died in concentration camps. Shatz, then a teenager, was sent to a Nazi slave labor camp to build railroad tracks. He managed to escape and made it to Budapest, Hungary, where he joined the anti-Nazi resistance. According to a Gazette story about him in 1980, of the 214 work slaves in his original unit, only six survived.
Shatz later became a journalist, and in 1958, he and his wife, Jaroslava, immigrated to the United States, settling first in Cleveland and later in Lake Placid, New York. He worked as an international journalist for the Hungarian Daily, while Jaroslava built a career as a jewelry designer. They purchased a second home in Williamsburg after vacationing in Virginia.
Frank Shatz, with a book and a cup of coffee, at one of his salons in 2022. (Joseph Filko)
In the early 1980s, he became a columnist for the Gazette, writing a column that explored international affairs while often intertwining stories with people and places from around Williamsburg. He wrote of his memories, of foreign policy, of people — some quite famous — with whom he had rubbed elbows. He estimates that he wrote more than 2,200 columns before failing eyesight slowed him down in the past few months.
“He wove stories of resilience, commitment and purpose — stories that inspired generations of readers,” longtime friend Frances Holt wrote. “Highly skilled at bringing people together, he gathered individuals of diverse backgrounds and talents at his weekly ‘salons,’ held at various locations around Williamsburg. Townspeople relished sightings of their distinguished neighbor — eminently recognizable in his black beret and often accompanied by his dear wife of 74 years.”
Shatz is well connected in William & Mary circles, and with his wife helped establish the Reves Center for International Affairs at the university. It was no wonder then, that many connected to W&M, where he became an honorary alumnus in 2015, attended a birthday party in his honor on Sunday. The dozens who attended included professors, staff and W&M President Katherine Rowe, who spoke of living a life with grace despite facing adversity at a young age.
“How much grace you have brought to those of us who have known you the rest of your life,” Rowe said. “We do see you as somebody who brings the strength of a 20-year-old into your next century and we are so blessed and honored to be part of that.”
In Shatz’s honor, scores of people sent in tributes, while the leaders of Williamsburg, James City County and York County all commended him. James City County declared Thursday “Frank Shatz Day,” while York County Supervisor Sheila Noll attended his party to read from a proclamation honoring “the extraordinary milestone” of his birthday and “a lifetime of experience, wisdom, service and meaningful contribution.”
At the party, Shatz was presented not only with a collection of poetry beginning with the newest of a series of three about him, but also with the finished manuscript of a book about his life, written by William Walker, a retired associate vice president for public relations at William & Mary. Shatz’s columns, Walker said, “don’t tell the half of it” concerning Shatz’s life.
“Frank is a true hero,” Walker said. “Faulkner put it best when he said, ‘Man is not nearly going to endure, he will prevail.’ And Frank has prevailed.”
Jacob Thiessen, left, and John Seraydarin, right, talk with Frank Shatz at Shatz’s 100th birthday party on Sunday, held at the home of Liam Boyd and Lisa Levine in Kingsmill. (Kim O’Brien Root/The Virginia Gazette)
A dapper-dressed Shatz, his signature beret in place, in his still-heavily accented voice, stood up to say thanks, discounting, as he often does, descriptions of himself as a hero. He spoke of an African proverb that goes to the effect of: “If you want to walk fast, walk alone. If you want to walk far, join others.”
“I heard about this proverb decades later,” Shatz added, “but during the Second World War, in surviving the Holocaust, I used the same principles. First I wanted to save only myself, but to help to save others, I joined the Zionist-led underground in Budapest. And I think I have contributed something to saving other lives. So it is really my life story.
“I’m overwhelmed with gratitude and honor that you are all here,” he continued. “But I tell you also, I am deeply embarrassed, because what I did was just to survive. It is the only credit I can take. But if I helped others, I am happy about it.”
Kim O’Brien Root, 757-603-3571,kimberly.root@virginiamedia.com
https://www.pilotonline.com/2026/02/25/a-true-hero-holocaust-survivor-frank-shatz-celebrates-100/
