Andreja Preger was born in 1912 in Pécs, Austro-Hungary, in present-day Hungary.[1] He was raised in Zagreb, present-day Croatia, where he enrolled in a Jewish school.[1] Preger, who was a member of Hashomer Hatzair as a teenager, studied both music and law.[1]
Preger, a reservist in the Royal Yugoslav Army, was called to active duty following the invasion of Yugoslavia by Nazi Germany in April 1941.[1] The Kingdom of Yugoslavia surrendered to the Germans on 18 April 1941. The Independent State of Croatia, a German puppet state encompassing Preger's home city of Zagreb, was established by the Germans and the fascist Ustaše, was established on 10 April 1941. Preger, who was both Jewish and a member of the Yugoslav army, went into hiding in Zagreb.[1] He later fled to Split, which was under Italian occupation.[1] Preger's father and uncle were both captured and killed in the Ustaše's Jasenovac concentration camp.[1]
Preger had been a member of the National Liberation Theatre in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina before the war. In 1943, he joined the Yugoslav Partisans at their headquarters in Jajce, central Bosnia.[1] He fought against the Nazis for the rest of World War II and survived the Holocaust.
He moved to Belgrade, Yugoslavia (present-day Serbia), after the war, where he pursued music and Jewish cultural activities. He served as the long-time leader of the Federation of Jewish Communities's cultural department.[1] He also participated in Jewish summer camps, which attracted campers from throughout the former Yugoslavia.[1]
Preger performed throughout as a pianist throughout Europe, the former Soviet Union and the United States as a member of the Belgrade Trio, which he had established.[1] He also taught piano at several music schools. By 2014, Preger, then 103, was the oldest member of the Serbia's Baruch Brothers Choir, one of the world's oldest Jewish choirs.[1]
Andreja Preger died in Belgrade, Serbia, on 18 December 2015, at the age of 104.[1]
