DAILY REPUBLIC: Holocaust survivor brings tale of survival to Vacaville

DAILY REPUBLIC

Holocaust survivor brings tale of survival to Vacaville venue
By Ian Thompson
March 11, 2010

VACAVILLE - When Plaszow concentration camp inmate Leon Leyson saw the list of Jews who were being taken to Oskar Schindler's Krakow factory, he saw his name was written there, but was crossed off. Twelve-year-old Leyson trembled as he told the German guard a mistake had been made. Leyson was sure he would get shot. Then what the Holocaust survivor modestly describes as one of 'a series of very fortunate events' happened. The guard simply waved him forward to join the rest of his family already at the fragile sanctuary of Schindler's factory.

Leyson is coming to Vacaville's Performing Arts Theater on March 18 to talk about his tale of survival as one of the youngest Jews to be saved from the Nazi death camps by Schindler during World War II. The evening is being presented by Chabad of Solano County. Leon Leyson, then known as Lieb Lejzon, was 10 years old when the German Wehrmacht crushed Poland in September 1939. The family was living in Krakow, where his father was a craftsman, when the Nazis arrived and stripped the Jews of any rights they had.

'Thus began my story in the campaign against the Jewish people,' Leyson said 71 years later. Soon, the Nazis confined Krakow's Jews to the ghetto there. 'It was not like anything you can imagine,' Leyson said, 'living without any human rights or any food to eat, constant stress with people being murdered on the streets. It was an insane place.' Leyson attributes his survival to a string of well-timed events. The first was when his father was picked to work in a factory owned by Schindler, a German businessman. 'He was known in the area as a good craftsman, but he had lost his job because he was Jewish,' Leyson said of his father.

When Schindler came to Krakow, he took over a factory that was taken from its Jewish owners. The factory was across the street from where Leyson worked before the war.'He found out about my father and hired him,' Leyson said. 'He became one of Schindler's first workers. He hired more and more Jewish workers because it was profitable.' Leyson's father would smuggle small pieces of food home in his pocket, and each time Schindler added more people, Leyson's father would ask for another member of his family to be hired. Before Leyson could be added, he was sent to Plaszow, a concentration camp whose commander shot Jews out of hand for the smallest of reasons. 'He was worse, much worse than depicted in the movie,' Leyson said.

Schindler eventually brought Leyson to his factory. The youth was so short he had to stand on a box to work the machinery. 'He was not like the Nazis. They would only bark orders,' Leyson said of Schindler. 'He was a better human being in real life than in the movie.'Leyson remembers seeing the big parties Schindler had in his office, entertaining and bribing the Nazis 'and after they all left, he would come to the factory floor and talk to all of us. ''When push came to shove, when it came to do the right thing, he did what was needed to save 1,200 people,' Leyson said. That included rescuing women and children, including Leyson's mother and sister, who were being shipped to Auschwitz. It also including pulling Leyson out of a group of Jews who were being transported to Germany.'When you think about it, he saved a lot more than that when you think about all the generations that came after,' Leyson said.

Four years after the war, Leyson came to America, served in the Army and was a high school teacher for 39 years before he retired.Leyson didn't talk about his experiences in the Holocaust until after the movie 'Schindler's List' came out in 1994.'There comes a time when it's time to speak,' he said. 'There are fewer and fewer of us who are actual witnesses. People who perished during that period, they had one request — if you survive, tell the world what happened. 'It's still not easy to talk about it. 'As many times as I have done this, the last time is just as hard as the first,' Leyson said.

On Schindler's List: An Evening with Leon Leyson
Vacaville Performing Arts Center,
1010 Ulatis Drive
7 pm | Thursday, March 18
General tickets: $20 in advance, $25 at the door.
Student tickets: $15 in advance, $20 at the door.
Reserve Tickets: http://www.vpat.net or http://www.JewishSolano.com
Information: 1-707-592-5300