Josef "Joža" Karas (May 3, 1926 – November 28, 2008) was a Polish-born, Czech-American musician and teacher who located and made public music composed by inmates who worked at the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt during World War II.
Born to Christian parents in Warsaw, Karas emigrated to the United States in 1948 via Colombia and Canada.
[1] He spent years searching for the World War II era musical compositions made by Jews in the Nazi concentration camps.
[2] In 1970 he read that some musical compositions and fragments had been found at the Terezin concentration camp and been donated to Prague's Jewish State Museum, including a version of Hans Krasa's children's opera, Brundibar, which was performed at Terezin many times between September 1943 and October 1944.
He was survived by his second wife (Anne Killackey Karas), six children (Francis, Henry, Michael, Joseph, Alexander, and Joan K. Carrasquillo); seven grandchildren, and three siblings.