[2] In 1945, he escaped from a train carrying him to the Dachau concentration camp when the engine was destroyed by an American fighter-bomber.

[2] However, following the Soviet-led invasion that ended the Prague Spring in 1968, he left the country, first to Yugoslavia, then Israel and later in 1970 to the United States.

After the fall of communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1989, he divided his time between Prague and Washington, D.C., where he continued to teach at the American University.

He was given an apartment in the Prague Castle by then President Václav Havel and honored for his contributions to Czech culture on his 80th birthday in 2006.

[4] Lustig was married to Věra Weislitzová (1927-2009), daughter of a furniture maker from Ostrava who was also imprisoned in the Terezín concentration camp.