Koltanowski Family

George Koltanowski (1903-2000), "The Dean of American Chess," was born in Eastern Europe and moved to Antwerp, Belgium as a child. Learning to play chess at the age of 14, he became the national chess champion of Belgium for the first of four times, at the age of 20 (1923, 1927, 1930 and 1936). His most noted tournament wins were Antwerp 1932, Barcelona 1934, and Barcelona 1935.

George Koltanowski was best known for his remarkable abilities in simultaneous blindfold play, becoming a phenomenon across Europe. In 1937, he played 34 blindfold games simultaneously against a strong group of chess players at the Edinburgh Chess Club in Scotland and won 24 games and drawing 10 and set a record for World Blindfold Chess Champion. He was at the 1939 Chess Olympiad in Argentina during the outbreak of World War II. Koltanowski, who was Jewish, chose to live in Central America during the war and moved to the United States in 1944. He claims chess saved his life, as some of his family members were killed in concentration camps during the war and had it not been for the Chess Olympiad he may have been killed too.

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