Oliver Rácz was born in 1947 in Košice into a teaching family of Hungarian-Jewish nationality. His father saved several Jews from Košice during World War II.
He also managed to forge documents for his future wife, Katarína. His father was arrested towards the end of the war, he was sentenced to death and had to hide in the crypt of a Dominican church. He managed to survive, thanks to priest Mikuláš Lexman. For saving human lives, the father was awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations. Katarína Ráczová, his younger sister is a multiple Czechoslovak champion and Olympian in fencing. From 1953 to 1965, Oliver attended the Hungarian Primary School and secondary grammar school in Košice, where his father was the principal. From 1965 to 197, he studied at the Faculty of Medicine of P. J. Šafárik University in Košice. He completed his postgraduate studies in Budapest from 1972 to 1976 at the Institute of Enzymology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He has a habilitation in medical biochemistry at the Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University in Bratislava and an attestation in clinical biochemistry. In 1992 – 2016, he was the head of the Institute of Pathological Physiology of UPJŠ Košice. From 1993 to 1995, he was chairman of the Academic Senate of the UPJŠ. He chaired the Council of Higher Education Institutions of the Slovak Republic from 1994 to 1997. During the period 1997 – 2000 he was vice-rector of UPJŠ Košice. From 2008 to 2018, he was a professional guarantor and teacher of various subjects at the Faculty of Nursing of the Jan Grodek State University in Sanok, Poland. From 2005 to 2017, he was a municipal deputy of the Košice – district called Staré mesto. He currently teaches pathological physiology and related subjects in three languages (Slovak, English, Hungarian) at the UPJŠ LF in Košice and at the University of Miskolc. He is a scientific secretary of the Association of Doctors in Košice and vice-president of the Slovak Society of Clinical Biochemistry. He is married and has two children.
The full story of the witness can be found in the online archive Memory of Nation.