Seventy years after the imprisonment of Leopold Engleitner by the Nazis, author Bernhard Rammerstorfer narrates Engleitner’s remarkable life and the Nazi atrocities inflicted upon him during one of the dark epochs of world history. Although Engleitner and Adolf Hitler grew up in the same province in Austria and shared the same cultural background and education system, the convictions and attitudes they developed were diametrically opposed. Whereas Hitler caused untold suffering to millions as a merciless mass murderer, Engleitner devoted his life to peace, refusing to buckle even in the face of death. Why would a man facing imprisonment and unspeakable suffering in a Nazi concentration camp, chose not to sign a document giving him his freedom? Instead he submitted to Nazi persecution, enduring imprisonment in Buchenwald, Niederhagen, and Ravensbruck concentration camps, rather than renouncing his faith as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Amazingly he still lives to tell his story, and today at age one hundred and three, he is the oldest known male concentration camp survivor.
Leopold Engleitner was featured in The Boston Globe:
I must say this is a favorite sites. Great job moderating, And well written articles. Rarely does a website causes me to bring it up in coversations at the dinner table. Good luck!