Seattle Couple Wills Away $850K To America — Destroyed By Nazis, They Were Sheltered And Supported By Uncle Sam
A Seattle couple has willed away the entirety of their life’s savings to the United States of America.
Peter and Joan Petrasek, a couple who adopted America after the Nazis had torn their family apart, requested in their wills that the entirety of their estate be left “to the government of the United States of America.” The couple didn’t have any children, however, they claimed it is their love for the country that helped make the decision, reported the Seattle Times.
The accumulated wealth and cash, including the entire proceeds from the sale of their West Seattle home, totaled $847,215.57.
Peter Petrasek survived World War II and escaped Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, where was he born. Peter would have been a boy of 12 when the Nazis marched into the town and started public executions and capture of innocent civilians. Having their entire property confiscated, he watched as his father was dragged off to a concentration camp, where Peter suspects he breathed his last. Apparently, Peter couldn’t avoid the horrendous concentration camps since young-aged boys and able-bodied men were the most preferred forced laborers for the Nazi army.
However, he cheated death on multiple occasions and was eventually placed in a camp for youths related to the Luftwaffe, or the German air force, where he learned to fly and was dispatched on multiple missions. Though he was shot down by the allied forces, Peter somehow miraculously survived and hiked his way to into Switzerland. Thereafter, he moved to Canada where he met and married his wife Joan, an Irish immigrant, in 1951.
Eventually, the couple decided to settle in Seattle after a thorough research about regions where they thought they would like to live. Peter Winn, an assistant U.S. attorney in Seattle, attempted to justify the Petraseks’ decision to donate their money to the government.
“As a refugee from World War II, he was very grateful to his adopted country. He grew up with a lot of people in Eastern Europe who would have been happy to change places with him. There are still a lot of people in the world who would envy him the life he lived. He wanted to make a statement about how much it meant to him to be an American citizen.”
The Seattle-based couple had no next of kin, and it took about three years to get their estate settled. A spokesman for the Treasury confirmed the entire money will go into the “General Fund” of the Department of Treasury.
[Image Credit | Getty Images]
