Survivor from Poland | Buchewald, Mauthausen

Leo Rosner was born in Poland in 1929. He was hidden in an attic when he was thirteen years old, along with his mother and sister. He lived in the Krakow Ghetto and survived seven camps including Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Fleshburg, Plaszow in Poland, and Flosverg in Germany. He survived work in construction and munition factories in death camps and also typhus. He was liberated by Captain Lebi of the Jewish brigade from Mauthausen when he was sixteen years old. He came to the United States in March 29, 1948 on a student visa, and President Truman soon ruled that anyone who came before April 1 could be given a permanent visa. He served in the United States’ Army in intelligence from 1952, and he spent one year in Germany. His father and one uncle survived the Holocaust. His dying mother had told him, “You must promise me my child, you will survive.” His current wife is Cuban and her family were all killed in Treblinka. Leo has written a book The Holocaust Remembered and speaks at schools to teach the future generations about his experience. Leo also participated in Germany in a trial of Gestapo in Poland, where he recognized four Gestapo officers.