‘Schindler’s List’ Survivor Speaks

Over 1400 people filled the Auditorium at Niles West High School in Skokie, IL to hear the story of one man’s commitment to save thousands of Jews during the dark years of the holocaust. Mr. Leon Leyson the youngest survivor on Schindler’s List, kept the crowd spell-bound for an hour and a half while he retold his personal experience of growing up in Cheder, the takeover of the Nazi Regime and how he was miraculously saved through the efforts of Oskar Schindler and his factory.

The event was a joint project of the 8 Chicago area JLI affiliates and was in large part an opportunity to showcase to the community the offerings of JLI and especially the upcoming course You Be The Judge II which will be running at 10 different locations throughout the city. People saw for the first time that Chabad’s adult education program the Rohr Jewish Learning Institute, is by far the largest and most influential adult learning program available.

The program began with introductory remarks by Rabbi Meir Hecht of the Jewish Learning Institute of Metropolitan Chicago, followed by Mr. Richard Hirschhaut, the executive director of the Illinois Holocaust Museum. Rabbi Daniel Moscowitz, Regional Director of Lubavitch Chabad of Illinois spoke of the importance of bringing the messages of our history into our present life and leaving tonight’s event with a new inspiration and commitment to Judaism, he then introduced the speaker of the evening Mr. Leon Leyson.

An extremely moving moment occurred when Mrs. Margot Schlesinger of Chicago came to the podium after Mr. Leyson’s talk. Mrs. Schlesinger, a fellow survivor of Schindler’s list spoke for a few minutes of her experiences as well.

Then, a group of the JLI affiliate Shluchim, Rabbis Baruch Hertz from Rogers Park and Lakeview, Yochanan Posner from Skokie, Meir Moscowitz from Northbrook, Dovid Flinkenstein from Wilmette presented Mr. Leyson with a silver Mezuzah case and Mezuzah.

A special thank you to Rabbi Meir and Mrs. Yehudis Hecht for their efforts to coordinate this event together with the many other Shluchim who helped.