Leopold Engleitner

[Guest Kurt]

 

In 1939 Leopold Engleitner was given a choice by the Gestapo: renounce his beliefs as a Jehovah’s Witness or be arrested. Mr. Engleitner chose the latter and would spend four years in three different Nazi concentration camps: Buchenwald, Niederhagen and Ravensbrueck.

Jehovah’s Witnesses were another group that alongside Jews, homosexuals and gypsies (Roma) were targeted by the Nazis for annihilation. Hitler, referring to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, declared “This brood will be exterminated in Germany.” Not only conscientious objectors, the Jehovah’s Witnesses were especially infuriating to the Fuehrer because they refused to raise their arms and shout “Heil, Hitler!” They considered it a form of idolatry.

Mr. Engleitner was released in 1943 after promising to serve as an agricultural laborer near his home in Austria. He was liberated by the U.S. army in 1946.

In 2012, director Bernhard Rammenstorfer released the documentary Ladder in the Lions’ Den (the ladder symbolizing the way out that Mr. Engleitner refused when he would not renounce his faith), which examined the choices Mr. Engleitner made. You can watch the trailer here.

Leopold Engleitner, the oldest survivor of the concentration camps, died on April 21, 2013 at the age of 107.

This is an image of Leopold Engleitner from his arrest in 1939, from digitaljournal.com. Obituary via Greatest Generation.

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Oldest Concentration Camp Survivor

 

 

 

[Guest Kurt]