Holocaust survivor, 103, tells students of resisting Nazis

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/05/05/holocaust_survivor_103_tells_students_of_resisting_nazis/

By Milton J. Valencia
Globe Staff / May 5, 2009

CAMBRIDGE - He would not bend to their political will or join their army, nor would he deny his religion, and for that Leopold Engleitner was sent to a concentration camp in wartime Germany.

"Every morning . . . you would not know whether you would live to see the evening," the Austrian native said through a translator, his broken voice showing his years.

But again he saw each evening throughout World War II. And some 70 years later, at age 103, Engleitner told his story of six years in three concentration camps under Nazi rule, never losing faith.

Beginning the latest US tour of his book, "Unbroken Will," Engleitner, sitting hunched over in a wheelchair, draped in a baggy coat and pink tie, told a crowd of about 400 Harvard University students, faculty, and others at a Center for European Studies seminar last night that no hardship could break his will. snip

He was arrested for being a Jehovah's Witness, called a Bible researcher at the time.

He was also persecuted for refusing to join the military, saying it was against God's will and that he would have no part of a nationalism of hate.

[OmahaBlueDog]

1. I'm glad he's telling the story, as the living memory of the Holocaust is rapidly disappearing

...and "deniers" seem to find willing listeners, despite overwhelming documentary evidence of the atrocities.