Youngest ‘Schindler’s List’ Survivor Dies in California, 83
by JNS.org
Leon Leyson, the youngest among the 1,100 Jews saved by German industrialist Oskar Schindler during World War II, died over the weekend at his southern California home. He was 83 years old. His daughter told the Los Angeles Times that her father passed away after a four-year battle with lymphoma.
Schindler saved Jews by telling SS officers that they were his employees and necessary for his factories. He called Leyson “the Little Leyson” because the boy, who went to work in Schindler’s factory at age 13, needed to stand on boxes to work the machinery.
Leyson’s mother and brothers were also saved by Schindler, who died in 1974 and was buried in Jerusalem. He was named as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem in 1993.