Zora Arkus-Duntov - Early Life

Early Life

Zora was born Zachary Arkus in Belgium on Christmas Day, 1909. His father was a Russian-born Jewish mining engineer, and his mother, also Russian Jewish, was a medical student in Brussels.

After the family returned to their hometown of Leningrad, Zora's parents divorced. His mother's new partner, Josef Duntov, another mining engineer, had moved into the household. Even after the divorce, Zora's father continued to live with the family, and out of respect for both men, Zora and brother Yura took on the last name of Arkus-Duntov.

In 1927, his family moved to Berlin. While his early boyhood ambition was to become a streetcar driver, streetcars later gave way to motorcycles and automobiles. His first motorized vehicle was a 350 cc motorcycle, which he rode at nearby racetracks as well as through the streets of Berlin. When his parents, fearing for his safety, insisted he trade the cycle in for an automobile, Zora bought a racecar. The car was a cycle fendered contraption called a "Bob", from a short-lived manufacturer of the same name. The Bob was set up for oval track racing. It had no front brakes and weak rear brakes.

In 1934, Zora graduated from the Charlottenburg Technological University (known today as the Technical University of Berlin). He also began writing engineering papers in the German motor publication Auto Motor und Sport. Later in Paris, he would meet Elfi Wolff, a German native who danced with the Folies Bergère.

When World War II began in 1939, Zora and Elfi were married, just as Zora and his brother joined the French Air Force. When France surrendered, Zora obtained exit visas from the Spanish consulate in Marseilles, not only for Elfi and himself, but for his brother and parents as well. Elfi, who was still living in Paris at the time, made a dramatic dash to Bordeaux in her MG just ahead of the advancing Nazi troops. In the meantime, Zora and Yura hid inside a bordello. Five days later, Elfi met up with Zora and his family and later they boarded a ship out of Portugal bound for New York.