E8 Resistance fighters

When war broke out in 1939, Josef Horvath was working with numerous Austrians at an airport in Germany. In 1940, he was called up to the Wehrmacht in Bremen. When he realised on home leave in Burgenland that his family had been deported, he deserted to France and eventually joined the French Foreign Legion. In 1945, he returned to Austria as a soldier with the French troops who were now involved in the fighting. Josef Horvath is the only Roma known to date to have actively fought for the liberation of Austria on the side of the Allies as a soldier in combat.