The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson

Leyson had a hard time in this camp and was afraid he would not survive. Unfortunately, Leyson’s elder brother, Tsalig, was put on one of these trains and refused an opportunity to escape because his girlfriend was on the train as well.Įventually the ghetto was completely cleared out and the Jews were taken to the work camp, Plaszow.

Soon the people were afraid to get on these trains. Jews who had managed to escape these new ghettos and return to the city told horror stories of concentration camps. Soon, however, they were forced to board trains to these new ghettos. The Nazis at first asked for volunteers to agree to move into the ghettos in the countryside. However, they managed to survive until the Nazis decided it was time to purge even the ghetto. The ghetto was so crowded that there were sanitation and disease problems. The man his father worked for was Oskar Schindler.Ī short time later, the remaining Jews were transferred to a closed off ghetto at the edge of the city.

He was not paid, but he was given a work pass that allowed him and his family to remain in Krakow when the Germans purged the city of all but fifteen thousand workers. Leyson’s father was given a job at this factory. He was able to secure a job a short time later when he opened a locked safe for the new German owner of a local factory. When Leyson’s father was released from prison, he returned home broken and without a job. A short time later, Leyson’s father was arrested and held in a local prison for several weeks, leaving the family without money and a means to get food. His eldest son, Hershel, returned to the home village alone. Leyson’s father returned a short time later, having had second thoughts about abandoning his family. The city was an adventure for Leyson in the beginning, but when the war began, life became complicated for him and his family.Īssuming the German soldiers would be much like they were during World War I, when the Germans invaded Poland, Leyson’s father decided that it would be safe to leave his wife and children in Krakow, but he and his eldest son should return to their home village ahead of the Germans. At the age of eight, Leyson and his family moved to Krakow where his father worked in a glass factory. Life was fairly carefree for Leyson, filled with summer days playing in the river and adventure games played out with friends. Leon Leyson began his life in a small village in Poland.

The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson