Leon Greenman (1910–2008)

Leon Greenman was born in to a large Jewish family in the East End of London. His mother died suddenly when he was two years old, and his father took the family back to his native Holland, where they lived in Rotterdam with his parents. Leon left school at age 16 and tried several occupations, including boxing. His father decided Leon should become a barber/hairdresser, and he returned to London, where he also had another interest. He had met Esther (Else) van Dam at an amateur operatic society in Rotterdam. Now he courted her in London, and they married in 1935 and returned to Rotterdam, where they had a son, Barney. Greenman joined his father-in-law's bookselling business. In May 1940, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands in World War II. Greenman held a British passport, and had expected that he and his family would be evacuated by the British Consulate, but this never happened. Greenman lost his passport and other documents in the chaos of the war, and the center of Rotterdam was destroyed by German bombardment. In 1942, the family was sent to the Westerbork transit camp to be deported. Despite his protests that he was British and should be released, Greenman and his family were put on a train with 750 other Jews to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau. His wife and son were murdered in the gas chambers almost immediately. Greenman was one of 50 men selected to be slave laborers. He worked as a barber and sang to the kapos in the evenings. After 18 months, he was transferred to the Monowitz complex inside Auschwitz (also known as Auschwitz III), where he was subjected to medical experiments. With the approach of the Red Army in early 1945, Greenman and the other prisoners were taken on a forced death march to Gleiwitz, and then in open cattle trucks to Buchenwald. Shortly afterwards, the camp was liberated by the American army. After the war ended, Greenman recuperated in the British Hertford Hospital in Paris. He and his father, who had also survived, moved back to England in November 1945. Leon worked as a tradesman for 40 years, and performed as a tenor under the stage name Leon Maure. Later in life, he decided to tell his story to anyone who would listen. He visited schools to speak to young people, showing them his tattoo and describing his experiences. He donated photographs and mementos to the Jewish Museum London, which opened a permanent gallery showing his collection. An accompanying book, Leon Greenman Auschwitz Survivor 98288, was published in 1996. He also campaigned against far right extremism, regularly receiving threats of violence as a result; in 1994, his home in London was attacked. He received an OBE for services against racism in 1988. He published his autobiography, An Englishman in Auschwitz, in 2001.