John Izbicki, who has died aged 91, was a journalist with the Telegraph for 30 years, covering the City, education and then
Paris. A Jewish refugee from nazism, he arrived in
Britain at the age of nine on 3 September 1939, the day that the
UK declared war on
Germany following the invasion of Poland.
He had been born Horst Ibicki in Berlin, the son of Selma and Leonard Izbicki, who had moved to
Berlin from Kolberg (now Kołobrzeg, in Poland) after the first world war. His father’s haberdashery store was one of 7,500 Jewish businesses attacked in 1938 on Kristallnacht. He always said that he shouted himself so hoarse during the attacks that his vocal cords never fully recovered. His father managed to get visas and train tickets and they prepared to leave.