"Shemuel A. Katz was born in Vienna in 1926. After the German Nazi occupation in 1938 he escaped with his family to Hungary. He studied at high school and took piano lessons. After the German occupation of Hungary he was sent to a forced labor camp. He succeeded to escape to Budapest where he found shelter at the Glass house, a place organized by Carl Lutz, a Swiss diplomat who strived to save Jews who were condemned and sent to death camps by the Nazi regime towards the end of the war.
He was liberated when the Russian Red Army took over Budapest. After the war, he started architecture studies. He joined the "Shomer Hatzair" movement and decided to leave for Israel, Palestine then under the British Mandate which restricted and controlled the number of Jews allowed to enter the country. In 1946 he left Europe joining a large group of illegal immigrants who embarked on the ship called "Knesset Israel", arrived at Haifa port and was deported to a detention camp in Cyprus..."
Source: Tal Gallery site