{{Short description|British anti-fascism campaigner and survivor of Auschwitz}} {{EngvarB|date=October 2017}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2017}} {{Infobox person | name = Leon Greenman | image = Leon Greenman and family.jpg | image_size = | alt = Black and white photo of Greenman and his wife with their young son | caption = Greenman with his family in 1942, in Rotterdam | birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1910|12|18}} | birth_place = Whitechapel, London, England<ref>[http://www.freebmd.org.uk England and Wales Births 1837–1983]</ref>{{flagicon|UK}} | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|2008|3|7|1910|12|18}} | death_place = | occupation = Anti-fascism campaigner }}
'''Leon Greenman''' OBE (18 December 1910 – 7 March 2008) was a British anti-fascism campaigner and survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. He gave regular talks to school children about his experience at Auschwitz, and also wrote a book, ''An Englishman in Auschwitz''.<ref name="Guardian obit">{{cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/mar/10/secondworldwar | title=Obituary: Leon Greenman | work=The Guardian | date=10 March 2008 | accessdate=12 October 2013 | author=Claire Dissington}}</ref>
The Holocaust gallery of the Jewish Museum London is dedicated to Greenman's story.<ref name="Gallery">{{cite web | url=http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/holocaust-gallery | title=The Holocaust Gallery | publisher=Jewish Museum London | accessdate=12 October 2013}}</ref>
==Early life== Greenman was born on 18 December 1910<ref name="Telegraph obit">{{cite news | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1581219/Leon-Greenman.html | title=Obituary: Leon Greenman | work=The Daily Telegraph | date=10 March 2008 | accessdate=12 October 2013}}</ref> in Whitechapel in the East End of London,<ref name="Guardian obit"/> which at the time had many Jewish residents. He had two brothers and three sisters.<ref name="Guardian obit"/> His mother's family were originally Russian Jews. His mother died when he was two years old,<ref name="Guardian obit"/> and, aged 5, he went to live in Rotterdam with his father's Dutch parents.<ref name="Guardian obit"/> He trained as a boxer, and returned to London where he became a barber.<ref name="Guardian obit"/> He also enjoyed singing, and met his future wife Esther ("Else") van Dam at an amateur operatic society in the 1930s.<ref name="Guardian obit"/> They married in 1935 at Stepney Green synagogue.<ref name="Guardian obit"/>
After honeymooning in Rotterdam, where his wife also had family, the couple settled there.<ref name="Guardian obit"/> Greenman joined his father-in-law's bookselling business, often travelling to London.<ref name="Guardian obit"/> He considered returning to live in England in the 1930s, but decided to stay in the Netherlands after hearing Neville Chamberlain's promise of "peace for our time" on the radio in 1938.<ref name="Guardian obit"/> His son, Barnett, known as Barney, was born on 17 March 1940.<ref name="Guardian obit"/> Less than two months later, on 10 May 1940, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands.<ref name="Guardian obit"/>
==Second World War== Greenman held a British passport, and had expected that he and his family would be evacuated, but the staff at the British consulate in Rotterdam disappeared and he could not escape. Even so, he expected to remain safe, as the Geneva Convention protected enemy civilians. He gave his money and passport to a non-Jewish friend to keep them safe,<ref name="Guardian obit"/> but, fearing that Germans may find out that he had helped a Jew, the friend destroyed the passport. Greenman and his family were sent to the Westerbork transit camp on 8 October 1942 to be deported.<ref name="Guardian obit"/> Despite Greenman's protestations that he was British, and should be released, he and his family joined 700 others on a train out of the Netherlands in January 1943. Proof of his nationality arrived soon after they left.<ref name="Guardian obit"/>
Greenman described travelling for 36 hours across Europe with no food or water, to the death camp at Birkenau where upon arrival the snow outside the train was littered with suitcases abandoned by people who had arrived before them. His wife and son were taken to one side and were murdered in the gas chambers<ref name="Guardian obit"/><ref name="Prince">{{cite news | url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/5104954.stm | title=Prince visits college for rabbis | publisher=BBC News | date=22 June 2006 | access-date=12 October 2013}}</ref> almost immediately. Greenman was sent in a different direction, one of 50 men selected to be labourers.
Greenman was tattooed on his arm with prisoner number 98288,<ref name="Independent obit">{{cite news | url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/leon-greenman-english-survivor-of-auschwitz-793671.html | title=Leon Greenman: English survivor of Auschwitz | work=The Independent | date=10 March 2008 | accessdate=12 October 2013 | author=Julie Waterson}}</ref><ref name="Uneasy">{{cite news | url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1937011.stm | title='We're British, and we're Jewish – and we're uneasy' | publisher=BBC News | date=18 April 2002 | access-date=12 October 2013}}</ref> and became a slave labourer. Surviving another sorting after 6 weeks, he worked as a barber, and sang to the kapos in the evenings.<ref name="Guardian obit"/> He was short – 5'2" or 158 cm – and slightly built, but he later attributed his survival to his physical training and useful skills. He made a promise to God that he would survive and tell others of the suffering in the camps.
He was transferred to the Monowitz industrial complex inside Auschwitz (also known as Auschwitz III) in September 1943, where he was subjected to medical experiments. When the camp was evacuated in early 1945, Greenman was sent on a 90-kilometre death march to Gleiwitz, and then taken in open cattle trucks to Buchenwald. There, Greenman found that the camp guards had fled on 11 April, and the camp was soon liberated by the American 3rd Army.<ref name="Guardian obit"/> Of the 700 on the train from Westerbork, only Greenman and one other man survived.<ref name="Guardian obit"/>
==Later life== Greenman had hoped to reunite with his wife and son, but learned after liberation that both had been killed at Auschwitz.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Pearce |first=Andy |last2=Lenga |first2=Ruth-Anne |date=2017-01-26 |title=The story of an Englishman in Auschwitz |url=http://theconversation.com/the-story-of-an-englishman-in-auschwitz-71601 |access-date=2025-10-17 |website=The Conversation |language=en-US |quote=Else and Barney were murdered within a few hours of arrival in Auschwitz in the gas chambers of bunkers one and two. [...] Ultimately, Leon’s survival owed much to chance. But it also relied on his resourcefulness and determination – both fuelled by his hope of one day being reunited with Else and Barney. [...] Leon returned to his home in Holland only to discover what had happened to his wife and child.}}</ref> Greenman would never remarry.<ref name="Telegraph obit" /><ref name="Moss" /> Greenman returned to Rotterdam immediately after the war, and he moved back to England in November 1945. He took home uniforms and other mementos of his imprisonment. He lived in Ilford,<ref name="Moss">{{cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jan/13/secondworldwar.poland8 | title=Memories of Auschwitz: Leon Greenman | work=The Guardian | date=13 January 2005 | accessdate=12 October 2013 | author=Stephen Moss}}</ref> working on a market stall for 40 years, and also performing as a tenor under the stage name "Leon Maure".<ref name="Telegraph obit"/>
After hearing Colin Jordan, the leader of the National Socialist Movement, addressing a rally in Trafalgar Square in 1962, Greenman determined to tell his story to anyone who would listen. Late into his life, he would visit schools to bear witness to the Holocaust, showing them his tattoo and telling them his story.<ref name="Uneasy"/> He donated photographs and mementos to the Jewish Museum in Finchley, which opened a permanent gallery showing his collection in 1995. An accompanying book, ''Leon Greenman Auschwitz Survivor 98288'', was published in 1996. Into his nineties Greenman was to be found in the museum every Sunday, willing to talk to anyone about his experiences<ref name="Independent obit"/> and he also guided tours around the camp at Auschwitz. The museum's collection was merged with that of the Jewish Museum in Camden (now London Jewish Museum), where upon reopening in 2010 Greeman's item formed a permanent gallery, the ''Holocaust Gallery''.<ref name="Gallery"/>
He also campaigned against the far right, regularly receiving threats of violence as a result; in 1994, his home in London was attacked.<ref name="Uneasy"/><ref name="People">{{cite web | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/manchester/content/articles/2005/01/25/holocaust_faye_feature.shtml | title=People: The only Englishman in Auschwitz | publisher=BBC News | date=27 January 2005 | accessdate=12 October 2013}}</ref> In 1993, he joined the demonstration calling for the closure of the British National Party headquarters in Welling in south-east London.<ref name="Guardian obit"/> He also actively supported the Anti-Nazi League and Unite Against Fascism. In 2002, aged 91, he demonstrated against a visit to London by far-right Austrian politician Jörg Haider.<ref name="Haider">{{cite news | url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2071467.stm | title=Blair is 'right wing' – Haider | publisher=BBC News | date=28 June 2002 | access-date=12 October 2013}}</ref> He received an OBE for services against racism in 1988.<ref name="Telegraph obit"/>
He suffered a heart attack in 2006, and received a pacemaker. He died in Barnet Hospital, having contracted pneumonia after an operation on a broken bone sustained in a fall. He was buried at East Ham Cemetery, near his father and two siblings.<ref>[http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m11s18&SecId=18&AId=58750&ATypeId=1 Shoah educator Greenman dies at 97], ''The Jewish Chronicle'', 14 March 2008</ref> It was then suggested that a memorial should be erected in Valentines Park peace garden in Ilford.<ref>[http://www.ilfordrecorder.co.uk/content/redbridge/recorder/news/story.aspx?brand=RECOnline&category=newsIlford&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=newsilford&itemid=WeED20%20Mar%202008%2009%3A36%3A47%3A327 Leon Greenman – why we must honour him], ''Ilford Recorder'', 20 March 2008</ref> The memorial was funded by donations and was unveiled in 2009.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |date=2009-09-24 |title=Ilford pays tribute to a Shoah educator |url=https://www.thejc.com/news/community/ilford-pays-tribute-to-a-shoah-educator-bl5f9u0b |access-date=2025-10-17 |website=The Jewish Chronicle |language=en}}</ref>
==See also== *Tex Banwell and Jane Haining: other British inmates of Auschwitz extermination camp
==Further reading== * Greenman, Leon (2001), ''An Englishman in Auschwitz''. Library of Holocaust testimonies. London: Vallentine Mitchell. {{ISBN|0853034249}}.
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== * [https://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2007/01/19/leon_greenman_feature.shtml/ ''Leon's Tale'', BBC London, December 2007]{{dead link|date=September 2025|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} * [https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/03/uk_an_englishman_in_auschwitz/html/1.stm In Pictures: An Englishman in Auschwitz, ''BBC News'', 2003] *[http://www.jewishmuseum.org.uk/?unique_name=exhibitions&item=234 The Holocaust Gallery] at the London Jewish Museum
{{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Greenman, Leon}} Category:1910 births Category:2008 deaths Category:English anti-fascists Category:British people of World War II Category:English Jews Category:English people of Dutch-Jewish descent Category:English people of Russian-Jewish descent Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire Category:People from Whitechapel Category:World War II civilian prisoners Category:Auschwitz concentration camp survivors