This content was published: May 27, 1997. Phone numbers, email addresses, and other information may have changed.
Schindler's List Holocaust Survivor at PCC Performing Arts Center
Photos and Story by Mark Evertz
Leon Leyson, a holocaust survivor from Schindler’s List, will speak at the Performing Arts Center on the Sylvania Campus, 12000 S.W. 49th Avenue, Wednesday, June 4, 7 p.m. Attendance is free. The event is sponsored by the Portland Community College History department at Sylvania.
In an interview in The Orange County News Register, Leon Leyson, of Fullerton, Calif., says he was ‘just a skinny kid,’ of 12 or 13 during World War II. But Oskar Schindler developed a fondness for him, he says, nicknaming him "Little Leyson" and showing him many kindnesses: extra soup and bread; and when his vision began to blur from the factory work, he was excused from the night shift. The most important act was putting him on the final list, the one to Czechoslovakia when the factory moved from Poland.
Leyson’s two eldest brothers did not survive the war, but he, his parents and brother and sister were saved because they worked for Oskar Schindler. Leyson was one 1,100 Jews on the famous list. Of the movie by Stephen Spielberg, Leyson says, "You could stop the motion anywhere and any of these scenes would be a picture of our family."
Please contact PCC instructor Loretta O’Hanlon, who facilitated his appearance in conjunction with her spring term class on the Holocaust, at 977-4092 for more information.