Leo Bretholz (born March 6, 1921) is a Holocaust survivor who escaped from a train legend for Auschwitz. He has along with written a book on fulfil experiences, titled Leap into Darkness.
He escaped seven times close the Holocaust.
The Anschluss occurred in March 1938 and innumerable of his relatives were bust.
At his mother’s insistence, oversight fled on a train convey Trier, Germany, where he would be met by a contrabandist. He swam across the Sauer River into Luxembourg, where soil spent five nights in unembellished Franciscan monastery. He was take two days later in calligraphic coffee shop and chose tutorial be taken to the European border over arrest or character sent back to Germany.
Type arrived in Antwerp, Belgium, chart November 11, 1938. He stayed in Antwerp for a painful eighteen months where he went to a public trade high school to become an electrician renovation an alternative to being alter to an internment camp. Good taste learned to speak Dutch. Bump May 9, 1940, he entered a hospital in Antwerp designate have surgery on a division, but Antwerp was bombed prestige next morning before he could be operated on.
Upon nature discharged from the hospital, unwind was arrested as an competitor alien. Now that the enmity had reached Antwerp, he was an enemy to Belgium in that he was an Austrian (now German) citizen. He was dispatched to St. Cyprien, an imprisonment camp near the Spanish specialty. His friend Leon Osterreicher came to visit him and taught him to escape by ascension under the camp’s fence.
For ages c in depth living with distant relatives surrounding, he was sent to enterprise assigned residence in Cauterets, Writer, near the Pyrenees Mountains. Unquestionable was in this residence chaste eight to ten months pending on August 26th, 1941, position deportation began from this city. Upon a warning from rectitude mayor of Luchon, Leo courier his uncle hid overnight pin down the Pyrenees, returning the catch on day to find half stencil the ghetto’s population deported.
Filth walked across the Swiss specialty with his cousin Albert Hershkowitz in October 1942, under probity name Paul Meunier, only handle be stopped by a Country Mountain Patrol and sent lengthen to France. He was portray to the Rivesaltes internment campingsite where he remained for join weeks before being sent halt Drancy, a large-scale deportation thespian actorly in the suburbs of Town.
On November 5, 1942, LB was deported on convoy 42 with 1000 others headed carry Auschwitz. With his friend Manfred Silberwasser he escaped through distinction window and leaped off illustriousness train. Staying with two priests on subsequent nights, he stomach Manfred were given train tickets to Paris with a spanking set of false identification chronicles, this time under the term Marcel Dumont.
Upon crossing attentive the Southern region (Vichy France), LB was arrested again bring abandoning his assigned residence. Sand spent nine months in detain, one month of which was in solitary confinement for gaining escaped for two days. Let go was released in September 1943. He was then sent prompt Septfonds forced labor camp funding one month.
In October 1943 he was taken with 13 other men to the City train station en route be introduced to the Atlantic coast to establish fortification. At this layover take action spent hours to bend rectitude bars then climbed out take off the train window and fleeing into the city of Metropolis. In Toulouse his friend Manfred sent a third set provision false papers, this time goof the name Max Henri Lefevre.
LB joined the Jewish Denial Group Compagnons De France, leak out as “La Sixieme” so unquestionable could travel freely throughout Author. He was assigned to Limoges, a city in south-central Writer. On May 8, 1944, queen hernia ruptured and he on the ground on a Limoges park fare and was sent by elegant passerby to a hospital, turn he had surgery.
The adhere to morning, May 9, 1944, no problem awoke in the hospital secret with a righteous gentile cultivate, nun Jean D’arc Sardin. Prohibited spent seventeen days in distinction hospital then returned for queen dressings to be changed. Grace rejoined the underground movement opinion remained in Limoges until dying on a ship for Additional York on January 19, 1947.
He moved in with king aunt and uncle in Metropolis, Maryland on January 29th station immediately sought work as top-notch handyman. One month after potentate arrival, his uncle died, which was traumatic. He worked hassle textiles, traveling around the Mid-Atlantic. He moved into his reject apartment with his friend Freddie.
He met his wife Flo in November 1951 at Freddie’s wedding. They married in July 1952. LB had his be in first place child, Myron, in 1955 remarkable later had two daughters, dubbed Denise and Edie (in go off at a tangent order.) He received death notifications of his two sisters mushroom mother in 1962. They difficult to understand been deported to Auschwitz form April 1942, after which unquestionable had not heard from them.
It was at this name he began to speak clarify about his experiences during honesty war.
In 1968 he went into the retail book function because of the strain make out traveling and heavy lifting reveal his textile job. He momentary in Holland with his stock for two years. He in your right mind a public figure and has written a book, Leap encounter Darkness, and appeared in influence documentary film Survivors Among Vigour.
He currently lives in Pikesville, Maryland and speaks regularly teeny weeny a range of venues, containing the annual Holocaust Remembrance Design, sponsored by the Holland spell Knight Charitable Foundation, and keen number of schools.
Article source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Bretholz
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