Robert Clary was born Robert Max Widerman on March 1, 1926, He was the youngest of 14 children, 10 of whom died in the Holocaust[1]. His parents, Baila and Moishe Widerman were Polish Jewish immigrants. At age 12, he began a career singing professionally on a French radio station and also studied art in Paris. In 1942, because he was Jewish, he was deported to the Nazi concentration camp at Ottmuth, in Upper Silesia (now Otmęt, Poland).