Leopold Engleitner

Leopold Engleitner
Born	July 23, 1905 (1905-07-23) Aigen-Voglhub, Austria
Occupation	Lecturer
Known for	Oldest known survivor of the Buchenwald, Niederhagen and Ravensbrück concentration camps

Leopold Engleitner (born July 23, 1905) is a Holocaust survivor and conscientious objector who speaks publicly on his experiences with students. He is the subject of the documentary Unbroken Will. Engleitner is now the oldest survivor of the concentration camps Buchenwald, Niederhagen and Ravensbrück.

Born in Aigen-Voglhub, Austria, Engleiter grew up in the Austrian imperial city of Bad Ischl. He studied the Bible intensively in the 1930s and became baptized as one of Jehovah's Witnesses in 1932. During the period prior to World War II he faced religious intolerance, even persecution from his immediate surrounding and the Austrian authorities, first by the fascist regime of Dollfuss and then under Nazi Germany.

Time Spent in Prison From 1934 to 1938

• Spring 1934 48 hours in Bad Ischl prison
• Winter 1934/35 48 hours in Bad Ischl prison
• 05/01/1936 to 30/03/1936 imprisonment in St. Gilgen and Salzburg
• 19/09/1937 to 14/10/1937 detained in Bad Aussee prison

When Adolf Hitler occupied Austria in 1938, Leopold Engleitner's religion, ideologies, and his conscientious objection to serving in the Army came into conflict with those of the Nazis.

Concentration Camps

On the 4 April 1939 he was arrested in Bad Ischl by the Gestapo and taken to Linz and Wels for remand. From the 9 October 1939 till 15 July 1943 he was imprisoned in the concentration camps Buchenwald, Niederhagen and Ravensbrueck. In Niederhagen he rejected a proposal to renounce his beliefs, even though that would have led to his release. Despite brutal and inhumane treatment his will – to stand for fair principles and to refuse the military service – was unbroken.

In July 1943 - weighing only 62 pounds - he was released from the concentration camp under the condition that he would agree to be a lifelong slave laborer on a farm.

Escape

After his return home, he worked on a farm in St. Wolfgang. Three weeks before the war was over, on the 17 April 1945, he received his enlistment to the German army, whereupon he fled to the mountains of Salzkammergut. He hid there in an alpine cabin and in a cave and was hunted by the Nazis, but was never found.

On the 5 May 1945, Engleitner was finally able to return home, and he continued working on the farm in St. Wolfgang as a slave laborer. When in 1946 he tried to leave the farm, his request was rejected by the labor bureau of Bad Ischl with the argument his slave labor duty from the Nazi occupation was still valid. Only after an intervention of the US occupying power was he released from that duty in April 1946.

Time Served in Prisons, Concentration Camps and Doing Forced Labor During Nazi Persecution

• 04/04/1939 to 05/10/1939 prisons in Bad Ischl, Linz and Wels
• 05/10/1939 to 09/10/1939 deportation to concentration camp (prisons in Salzburg and Munich)
• 09/10/1939 to 07/03/1941 Buchenwald concentration camp
• 07/03/1941 to April 1943 Niederhagen concentration camp in Wewelsburg
• April 1943 to 15/07/1943 Ravensbrück concentration camp
• 22/07/1943 to 10/04/1946 forced labor on a farm
• 17/04/1945 to 05/05/1945 flight to the mountains after being called up

Post War Period

In the years after the war, Leopold Engleitner continued to face isolation and intolerance, and only after the author and film producer Bernhard Rammerstorfer documented his life in 1999 in the book and documentary film Nein statt Ja und Amen, did the larger public become aware of him. Engleitner and Rammerstorfer held lectures at universities, schools and memorials in Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and the U.S..

U.S. Speaking Tours

In 2004 the book and the film were translated into an English version, called Unbroken Will, and were presented in the US with a tour including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., Columbia University in New York and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles.

In 2006, Engleitner and Rammerstorfer made a second tour through the United States. They gave lectures in Washington, D.C., (at Georgetown University and Library of Congress), New York (at Columbia University), Chicago (at Harold Washington College), Skokie (for the Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois), Palo Alto, in the San Francisco Bay area (Stanford University) and Los Angeles (at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust).

The locations of their third 2009 U.S. speaking tour were the following: Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Florida Holocaust Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida; Palladium Theater at St. Petersburg College, Florida; Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, California; University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA); Moorpark College, California; Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, California.

This is how he became an international symbol for bravery, tolerance, and fair principles. Today Leopold Engleitner is the oldest survivor of the concentration camps Buchenwald, Niederhagen and Ravensbrück.

UNBROKEN WILL: The Books and DVDs

The English translation of the German book Nein statt Ja und Amen (1999) was published in 2004 in the USA, entitled Unbroken Will.

In 2005 Rammerstorfer released a new German biography and DVD Nein statt Ja und Amen – 100 Jahre ungebrochener Wille. The book also contains a short biography of the German conscientious objector Joachim Escher. Eschers was detained between 1937 and 1945 in several different prisons and in the concentration camps Sachsenhausen, Niederhagen and Buchenwald. In KZ Buchenwald he was servant to the former French government members Georges Mandel and Léon Blum, who the Germans kept as hostages.

Engleitner is also the subject of Rammerstorfer's educational DVD Unbroken Will which contains the full documentary plus films of special events relating to Engleitner's awareness-raising activities from 1999 to 2004 as well as material on the Holocaust for the use in schools in English, German, Italian, and Spanish.

In 2006, Rammerstorfer produced the documentary Unbroken Will Captivates the United States relating to the 2004 U.S. tour which was premiered at the Laemmle's Music Hall 3 Theatre in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles.

Rammerstorfer produced also the documentary Unbroken Will USA Tour relating to the 2006 U.S. tour which was premiered in the U.S. at the Laemmle's Sunset 5 Theatre in West Hollywood, in 2009.

The French version of the book entitled Une volonté de fer was released in 2007.

In 2008 Rammerstorfer released a new version of the German book, entitled "Ungebrochener Wille", which Engleitner and Rammerstorfer presented at Frankfurt Book Fair 2008 in Germany, the world's largest book fair.

In 2009, the new English book Unbroken Will: The Extraordinary Courage of an Ordinary Man-The Story of Nazi Concentration Camp Survivor Leopold Engleitner, born 1905 based on the latest German version was released at Harvard University.

The Austrian president, Heinz Fischer, described in his foreword the book as "a milestone in the correspondence about the horror of Nazism." Brewster Chamberlin, director of archives at the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC from 1986 to 1997, wrote a preface. Further prefaces were written by the founder of the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service Andreas Maislinger, Franz Jägerstätter and Leopold Engleitner, and Walter Manoschek, from the University of Vienna, "No more War!"

The Russian translation of the book Unbroken Will (Несломленная воля) was released in Russia in 2009. Engleitner and Rammerstorfer presented the book in Moscow at the Central Journalist House and at the book store "BIBLIO-GLOBUS" in September 2009.

UNBROKEN WILL: The Song

In May 2009, the songwriters Mark David Smith and Rex Salas from California have written the song "Unbroken Will" for Leopold Engleitner. On May 22, 2009, Leopold Engleitner was presented the song during an event at Moorpark College. The singer Phillip Ingram interprets "Unbroken Will". The song is available for download on the website www.unbrokenwill.com as well as the lyrics.

Rehabilitation and Recognition

Once a persecuted concentration camp laborer and outlawed conscientious objector he had been honored in May 2007 from the Republic of Austria and the Federal Republic of Germany for his courageous stand during the Nazi regime and for his tremendous awareness-raising activities with:

• The Golden Order of Merit of the Republic of Austria from Austrian President Dr. Heinz Fischer.
• The Cross of Merit on ribbon of the Federal Republic of Germany (Knight's Cross) from German President Dr. Horst Köhler

In 2003, he was awarded the "Silver Order of Merit of the Province of Upper Austria" by the Upper Austrian governor Josef Pühringer.

He was also awarded the Elfriede Grünberg Prize in 2006 by Antifa, an anti-Faschist Initiative in Austria.

In 2008, he was presented with the "Ring of Honor of the Town of Bad Ischl" by the municipal authorities in Bad Ischl, the town Engleitner grew up in.

In 2009, he received the "Badge of Honor of the Town of St. Wolfgang" by his home municipality St. Wolfgang.

Sources

• Book Unbroken Will: The Extraordinary Courage of an Ordinary Man-The Story of Nazi Concentration Camp Survivor Leopold Engleitner, born 1905 (Austria, 2009)
• Educational DVD Unbroken Will (USA, 2004)
• DVD Unbroken Will Captivates the United States (USA, 2006)
• DVD Unbroken Will USA Tour (USA, 2009)
• "Persecution and Resistance of Jehovah's Witnesses During the Nazi Regime: 1933-1945" by Hans Hesse, Edition Temmen, 2003, ISBN 3861087502, ISBN 978-3861087502
• "Though Weak, I Am Powerful" as told by Leopold Engleitner, The Watchtower, May 1, 2005, page 23-28
• "For Jehovah in the concentration camp - Engleitner", DiePresse.com, May 8, 2010, online, in German

External links

• Web site of Leopold Engleitner
• News about his tour in 2006 on YouTube