Leon Greenman

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Leon Greenman
Born	18 December 1910(1910-12-18) Whitechapel, London, United Kingdom^[1]
Died	7 March 2008 (aged 97)
Occupation	Anti-fascism campaigner

Leon Greenman OBE (18 December 1910 – 7 March 2008) was a British anti-fascist campaigner and survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp.^[2] He gave regular talks to school children about his experiences in later life, and also wrote a book, An Englishman in Auschwitz, about the camp.^[3]

1 Early life
2 Second World War
3 Later life
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Early life

Greenman was born in Whitechapel in the East End of London, which at the time was an area with a large number of Jewish residents. He was one of six children - three brothers and three sisters. His mother's family were originally Russian Jews. His mother died when he was two years old, and, aged 5, he went to live in Rotterdam with his father's parents, who were Dutch. He trained as a boxer, and returned to London where be became a barber. He also enjoyed singing, and met his future wife Esther ("Else") van Dam at an amateur operatic society in the 1930s. They married in 1935.

After honeymooning in Rotterdam, where his wife also had family, that was where the couple made their home. Greenman joined his father-in-law's bookselling business, and often travelled to London. He considered returning to live in England in the 1930s, to avoid the gathering clouds of war, but decided to stay in the Netherlands after hearing Neville Chamberlain's promise of "peace for our time" on the radio in 1938. His son, Barnett, known as Barney, was born on 17 March 1940. Less than two months later, on 10 May 1940, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands.

[edit] Second World War

Greenman held a British passport, and had expected that he and his family would be evacuated, but the staff at the British consulate in Rotterdam disappeared and he could not escape. Even so, he expected to remain safe, as the Geneva Convention protected enemy civilians. He gave his money and passport to a non-Jewish friend to keep them safe, but, fearing that Germans may find out that he had helped a Jew, the friend destroyed the documents. The situation for Jews in the Netherlands gradually worsened, and Greenman and his family were sent to the camp at Westerbork on 8 October 1942 to be deported. Despite Greenman's protestations that there had been a mistake - that he was British, and should be released - he and his family joined 700 others on a train out of the Netherlands in January 1943. Proof of his nationality arrived soon after they left.

What happened next to Greenman and his family was not unusual for people sent to Auschwitz and Birkenau. After travelling for 36 hours across Europe with no food or water, they arrived at the death camp at Birkenau. The snow outside the train was littered with suitcases abandoned by people who had arrived through before them. His wife and son were taken to one side, joining a queue of women, and Greenman was sent in a different direction, one of 50 men selected to be a labourer. He later discovered that his family were murdered in the gas chambers almost immediately.

Greenman was tattooed on his arm with a camp number, 98288, and became a slave labourer. After 6 weeks, the remaining men were sorted. Those who could work were kept alive, and the others were killed. He worked as a barber, and sang to the kapos in the evenings. He was short - 5'2" - and slightly built, but he later attributed his survival to his physical training and useful skills. He made a promise to God that he would survive and tell others of the suffering in the camps.

He was transferred to the Monowitz industrial complex inside Auschwitz (also known as Auschwitz III) in September 1943. In addition to unremitting hunger, cruelty, and killings, Greenman was subjected to medical experiments. With the tide of war turning, the Russians were pressing the Germans back, and the camp was evacuated in early 1945. In mid-winter, Greenman was sent on a 90-kilometre death march to Gleiwitz, and then taken in open cattle trucks to Buchenwald. But the Allies were getting close, and Greenman found that the camp guards had fled on 11 April, and the camp was soon liberated by the American 3rd Army.^[4] Of the 700 on the train from Westerbork, only Greenman and one other man survived.

[edit] Later life

Greenman returned to Rotterdam after the war, but there was little to keep him there, so he moved back to England in November 1945. He took home uniforms and other mementos of his imprisonment. He lived in Ilford, working on a market stall for 40 years, and also performing as a senior singer under the stage name "Leon Maure".

After hearing Colin Jordan, the leader of the National Front, addressing a rally in Trafalgar Square in 1962, Greenman determined to tell his story to anyone who would listen. Late into his life, he would visit schools to bear witness to the holocaust, showing them his tattoo and telling them his story. He donated photographs and mementos to the Jewish Museum in Finchley, which opened a permanent gallery showing his collection in 1995. An accompanying book, Leon Greenman Auschwitz Survivor 98288, was published in 1996. He would often visit the museum to recount his experiences, and also guided tours around the camp at Auschwitz. The museum's collection is being merged with that of the Jewish Museum in Camden, and a new exhibition will open in Camden in 2008.

He also campaigned against the far right, regularly receiving threats of violence as a result. In 1993, he joined the demonstration calling for the closure of the British National Party headquarters in Welling in south-east London. He also actively supported the Anti-Nazi League and Unite Against Fascism.

He received an OBE for services against racism in 1998. He never remarried.

He suffered a heart attack in 2006, and received a pacemaker. He died in Barnet Hospital, having contracted pneumonia after an operation on a broken bone sustained in a fall. He is to be buried at East Ham Cemetery, where his father and two siblings are interred.^[5] It has been suggested that a memorial should be erected in Valentines Park peace garden in Ilford.^[6]