Leon Weintraub (born 1 January 1926 in

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canti ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

) is a Polish-born Swedish physician. Weintraub survived

the Holocaust in Poland The Holocaust in Poland was part of the European-wide Holocaust organized by Nazi Germany and took place in German-occupied Poland. During the genocide, three million Polish Jews were murdered, half of all Jews murdered during the Holocaust. ...

and gives lectures on the Holocaust in Poland and Germany.

Early life

Leon Weintraub is the fifth child of a Jewish family from Łódź. His father died in 1927. Therefore, his mother had to raise him and the four sisters in poverty and under difficult conditions. At the age of 13 Leon witnessed the invasion of the German

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previous ...

and the

Nazi occupation of Poland Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...

. In 1940, the whole family was detained and forced to live in the

Łódź Ghetto The Łódź Ghetto or Litzmannstadt Ghetto (after the Nazi German name for Łódź) was a Nazi ghetto established by the German authorities for Polish Jews and Roma following the Invasion of Poland. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of Ge ...

Life in the Second World War

In order to survive the boy had to work in a galvanization factory which produced for the German Reich. After the invaders were defeated at the

Battle of Stalingrad The Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 19422 February 1943) was a major battle on the Eastern Front of World War II where Nazi Germany and its allies unsuccessfully fought the Soviet Union for control of the city of Stalingrad (later re ...

in February 1943, liquidations and deportations began in the ghetto. First the family tried to hide themselves, but they were detected and deported to

Auschwitz concentration camp Auschwitz concentration camp ( (); also or ) was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland (in a portion annexed into Germany in 1939) during World War II and the Holocaust. It con ...

in 1944. Leon was separated from his mother and his sisters, and seemed to face certain death in the gas chamber. He escaped by joining an outgoing transport of inmates to

Gross-Rosen concentration camp , known for = , location = , built by = , operated by = , commandant = , original use = , construction = , in operation = Summer of 1940 – 14 February 1945 , gas cham ...

where he was forced to work as an electrician. In February 1944 he was transferred to Flossenbürg, in March to Natzweiler-Struthof. As the French army approached, the SS guards decided to deport the inmates once again. When the deportation train got bombed by a warplane near Hintschingen, Weintraub escaped along with other inmates. After an all-night walk, the group reached

Donaueschingen Donaueschingen (; Low Alemannic: ''Eschinge'') is a German town in the Black Forest in the southwest of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg in the Schwarzwald-Baar '' Kreis''. It stands near the confluence of the two sources of the river Da ...

on April 23, 1945, two days after the French had occupied the city. At that point his weight was down to 35 kilos and he suffered from

typhus Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...

. Three of his sisters barely survived their last stay at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.Vortrag Dr. Weintraub, Website des Leibniz-Gymnasiums in Altdorf. Text: Thao My Lê

Post war life

After the Nazi regime ceased to exist and after his recovery, Weintraub began to study

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pract ...

at the

University of Göttingen The University of Göttingen, officially the Georg August University of Göttingen, (german: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, known informally as Georgia Augusta) is a public research university in the city of Göttingen, Germany. Founded ...

. There he also married his German wife Katja Hof. The couple had a son in 1948. In 1950 he started to work in a clinic for gynecology in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

. In 1951 his spouse and their son relocated to Poland. Weintraub completed his doctorate in 1966, but in 1969 he lost his post as a senior physician at a clinic in Otwock due to rising anti-Semitism in Poland. Thereafter the family emigrated to Sweden. His wife Katja Weintraub, who translated works by

Janusz Korczak Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit (22 July 1878 or 1879 – 7 August 1942), was a Polish Jewish educator, children's author and pedagogue known as ''Pan Doktor'' ("Mr. Doctor") or ''Stary Doktor'' ("Old Doctor"). After spending ma ...

from Polish into German, died in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, largest city of Sweden as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people liv ...

in 1970.Leon Weintraub, Projekt Riese
/ref> Weintraub serves as a witness and oral historian of

The Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

, giving lectures in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and

, mainly to scholars and students, as well as appearing in television documentaries and discussions.Some examples
Münchner Volkstheater: “Jugendliche im Holocaust. Tag der Quellen – Nacht der Zeitzeugen”, 6. November 2014

ttp://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/lodz/dobra_weintraub_speech.htm Opening ceremony of the Place of Remembrance in Dobra, Poland, Tuesday, 19 August 2008. Speech by Leon Weintraub/ref>

Quote

Decoration

*2004

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (german: Verdienstorden der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or , BVO) is the only federal decoration of Germany. It is awarded for special achievements in political, economic, cultural, intellect ...

Reference Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Weintraub, Leon 1926 births Living people Łódź Ghetto inmates Auschwitz concentration camp survivors Gross-Rosen concentration camp survivors Flossenbürg concentration camp survivors Natzweiler-Struthof concentration camp survivors Recipients of the Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany Polish emigrants to Sweden Health professionals from Łódź