Lajos Walder was born in June 1913 in Budapest, of Jewish parents. Although he graduated as a Doctor of Law, his passion was literature. He wrote numerous short-stories which were published in magazines and journals, presented a radio program of children's fairy tales written by himself. However he saw himself first and foremost as a poet, published 2 volumes of poetry an written numerous unpublished works. After the invasion of Hungary by the Nazis in 1944 he was recruited into one of the forced labour units and taken on a death march reaching the concentration camp of Gunskirchen. He was liberated on May 7, 1945 and died a hours later, having eaten his first meal after weeks of starvation. His family migrated to Australia in 1956 and have been living in Syney ever since. His daughter, Agnes Walder (also known as Gigi Silberstein) and herself a poet, translated her father's poems and arranged their posthumous publication in Sydney and Melbourne.
