Leon Weintraub ocalały dla pojednania

Abstract

The group of Auschwitz survivors is numerous and rapidly shrinking. However, the accounts (could use: biographies, memoirs, recollections, stories, etc.) of those who experienced it are remarkable and still worthy of study. Moreover, testimonies from the time of the Annihilation (or Holocaust) – a message with a great weight of emotion and a particular feature of the great history, make the material collected in this way can serve as an invaluable contribution to expanding knowledge and analysis for future generations. Naturally, the educational issue is also important, although the focus will be on the cognitive role. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate the fate of the life of an outstanding physician, a Polish Jew from Lodz, Leon Weintraub, who “started” his life anew three times – at the time of his birth in 1926, his liberation from the Nazi camps, and his expulsion from the country as part of the anti-Semitic campaign of March 1968. It seems that the study of the fate of an individual’s life under totalitarian systems, using the oral history method and confronting other sources, makes it possible to create a biographical sketch that is not just a collection of dry facts but enriched with elements of personal emotions, sensitivities, and feelings.