Leon Sniatowsky

Leon Sniatowsky was born on May 25, 1926 in Aleksandrów, near the city of Lodz, Poland. His father Motel and his mother Chanina operated a butcher business. Leon had a large, extended family and was a member of the Betar youth movement.

Aleksandrów had a large, ethnic-German population and Leon recalls having many non-Jewish friends before the outbreak of the Second World War.

During the German occupation of Poland, Leon’s family fled to Warsaw until the formation of the ghetto, and then they fled again to Wolanow, near the city of Radom. From there, they were deported to a slave labour camp near Wolanow, and from there Leon was transported to the Blizin labour camp. Later he was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and finally to the Dachau concentration camp.

After liberation, Leon lived at the Feldafing displaced persons camp until 1948. On July 31, 1948 he immigrated to Canada and settled in Toronto. His full testimony is part of the Canadian Collection of Holocaust survivor testimonies. It is preserved in the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive and accessible through the Ekstein Library.

Leon Sniatowsky

Maybe somebody was watching over me.