Nate Leipciger (M / Poland, 1928), Holocaust survivor
Nate Leipciger (M / Poland, 1928), Holocaust survivor
- KEYWORDS : <Sosnowiec Ghetto> <Auschwitz> <Dachau> -- <Germany> <Canada>
- MEMOIRS : The Weight of Freedom (2015)
Biography
Book : The Weight of Freedom (2015)
- The Weight of Freedom (Toronto: The Azrieli Foundation, 2015).
"To avoid thinking I repeated the words ‘after the war.’ The words stuck in my mind like a mantra. After the war. The words blended into the clang of the wheels. Would there ever be an end to the war? ... Nate Leipciger, a thoughtful, shy eleven-year-old boy, is plunged into an incomprehensible web of ghettos, concentration and death camps during the German occupation of Poland. As he struggles to survive, he forges a new, unbreakable bond with his father and yearns for a free future. But when he is finally liberated, the weight of his pain will not ease, and his memories remain etched in tragedy. Introspective, complicated and raw, The Weight of Freedom is Nate’s journey through a past that he can never leave behind."--Publisher description.
March of the Living
NATE LEIPCIGER was born in Chorzow, Poland on February 28, 1928. He had one sister Linka. In September 1939, the German army invaded Poland, and when the Nazis’ decided to make Chorzow “Judenrein”, Nate’s family was forced to leave their town and move to the town of Sosnowiec, which became a de facto ghetto. Nate and his family were transported to Auschwitz, where Nate was separated from his mother and sister, never to see them again. As luck would have it, Nate’s father was able to move Nate into his own line, thus being able to keep his son with him. Nate survived the camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Funfteichen, Gross-Rosen, Flossenburg, Leonberg, Muhldorf am Inn and Waldlager (two sub-camps of Dachau). Nate and his father were liberated on May 2, 1945 and immigrated to Canada in 1948. Nate married Bernice, and they have three daughters, twelve grandchildren and one great grandchild.