Has anyone heard of Leopold Engleitner

loosie

Apparantly he is the oldest survivor of the holocaust at 101 years old and he is one of Jehovahs witnesses.

james_woods

Haven't heard of Leopold, but you made me think:

2006 - 1945 = 61 years since liberation of the camps.

101 - 61 = 40 years old at the time.

So the (probably) "youngest" survivor was 40 back at the end of WW2?

loosie

I guess I should have said oldest still living. I was just wording it how I got it in an email.

Yes, I know what you meant - I was just speculating that surely you would expect some say 16 year old from the various camps might be statistically more likely to still be alive...maybe an internet search on this name would be useful...I will try in a minute or two.

James

blondie

His story is in the 1989 Yearbook under Austria. Six years in a concentration camp is an ordeal for anyone including him.

***

yb89 p. 113 Austria ***

The only one who was allowed to return home was Brother Engleitner, and he was seized later. The other brothers were immediately taken to the jail at the provincial capital of Linz. There they joined many other Witnesses who had been arrested that night. Soon afterward the brothers were transported to the Dachau concentration camp, whereas the sisters were sent to Ravensbrück.

They endured six years of suffering in the concentration camps before they were finally released.

I have visited Dachau...

Blondie

loosie

I would have to wonder how after seeing all that he would want to be a witness.

james_woods

If you check out this website - it is apparantly an association for the aid of Jewish holocause victims:

http://www.eurojewcong.org/ejc/news.php?id_article=228

It states that recently (late Dec. 2005) the Holocaust survivors living in the Eu Union have just had their monthly compensation payments increased from $162 per month to $210...it continues to say that there are about 17,000 persons receiving this money.

The Leopold Engleitner search finds numerous references to promotional literature and tv/film documentaries. There was a recent tour of the US, Canada in which he was said to be 101yrs of age. He does indeed claim to be the "last surviving holocaust victim". Without taking anything away from someone who has suffered such a serious fate, I just wonder -

Is it possible that this gentlemen would be better termed "last surviving JW holocaust victim"?

Big Tex

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopold_Engleitner

Leopold Engleitner, born on July 23, 1905, grew up in the Austrian imperial city of Bad Ischl, where he was able to meet with the emperor Franz Joseph.
He studied the bible intensively in the 1930s and changed his confession to become baptized a Jehovah Witness in 1932. During the Austro-faschism he faced religious intolerance, even persecution from his immediate surrounding and the officials. When 1938 Adolf Hitler occupied Austria, Leopold Engleitner’s religion, ideologies, and his refusal to serve in the Army came into conflict with those of the Nazism.
On the 4th of April 1939 he was arrested in Bad Ischl by the Gestapo and taken to Linz and Wels for remand. From the 9th of October 1939 till the 15th of July 1943 he was kept imprisoned in the concentration camps Buchenwald, Niederhagen and Ravensbrueck. In Niederhagen he rejected a proposal to renounce his beliefs (called “Revers”), even though that would have led to his release. Despite brutal and inhumane treatment his will – to stand for fair principles and to refuse the military service – was unbroken. In July 1943 he was released from the concentration camp under the condition, he agrees to lifelong slave labor on a farm.
After his return to Austria, he worked on a farm in St. Wolfgang. Three weeks before the War was over, on the 17th of April 1945, he received his enlistment to the Deutschen Wehrmacht (German Army), to which he responded with an adventurous getaway into the mountains of the Salzkammergut. He hid there in the Meisterebenalmhuette, an alpine cabin, and in a cave for weeks and was hunted by the Nazis like an animal, but they never found him.
On the 5th of May 1945 Leopold Engleitner could finally return home and continued working on that farm in St. Wolfgang. When in 1946 he decided he had enough of working on a farm, his proposal was rejected by the labor bureau of Bad Ischl with the argument his slave labor duty from the NS-time still holds validity. Only after an intervention of the US occupying power he was released from that duty in April 1946.
In the years after the war, Leopold Engleitner was still facing isolation and intolerance and only after the author and film producer Bernhard Rammerstorfer documented his life 1999 in the book and documentary film “Nein statt ja und Amen” the public became aware of him. Engleitner and Rammerstorfer held lectures at universities, schools and memorials in Germany, Italy, Austria, Swiss and the USA. In the year 2004 the book and the film were translated into an English version called “Unbroken will” and were presented in the US with a tour including the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, the Columbia University in New York and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.
This is how he became an international symbol for bravery, tolerance, and fair principles. Today Leopold Engleitner is the oldest survivor of the concentration camps Buchenwald and Niederhagen.
In 2005 Rammerstorfer released a new biography and DVD “Nein statt Ja und Amen – 100 Jahre ungebrochener Wille”. The book also contains a short biography of the German conscientious objector Joachim Escher’s. Eschers was detained between 1937 and 1945 in several different prisons and in the concentration camps Sachsenhausen, Niederhagen and Buchenwald. In KZ Buchenwald he was servant to the former French government members Georges Mandel and Léon Blum, who the Germans kept as hostages.
The Austrian President, Heinz Fischer described in his preface the book as “A milestone in the correspondence about the horror of the Nazism”. Further prefaces were written by the founder of the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service Andreas Maislinger, “ Franz Jägerstätter and Leopold Engleitner” and Walter Manoschek, from the University of Vienna, “ what engagement is capable of”.

james_woods

Thanks Tex - that clears up the misunderstanding I had:

Today Leopold Engleitner is the oldest survivor of the concentration camps Buchenwald and Niederhagen.

This may just go to show how urban legends can get started...isn't it sad that all the hyperbole just causes mistrust and disrespect for this poor guy?

I guess I am a little ashamed to have doon the quick lookup on him - he seems to be legit, but I still can't help but think there are a lot of other victims of Hitler still around as well...

Sincerely, James

Has anyone heard of Leopold Engleitner

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