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| Leo Bretholz, 93, Dies; Escaped Train to Auschwitz | Leo Bretholz, 93, Dies; Escaped Train to Auschwitz |
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| Schoolchildren sometimes asked him why he did not have a number tattooed on his arm, like other Holocaust survivors who visited their classes. The answer was in the story he was about to tell, Leo Bretholz replied. | Schoolchildren sometimes asked him why he did not have a number tattooed on his arm, like other Holocaust survivors who visited their classes. The answer was in the story he was about to tell, Leo Bretholz replied. |
| Mr. Bretholz, who died at 93 on March 8, would describe how, as a Jew, he had evaded Nazi concentration camps by living as a fugitive from 1938 to 1945, hunted in almost every country in Europe by the Nazis and their collaborators in Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Austria. | Mr. Bretholz, who died at 93 on March 8, would describe how, as a Jew, he had evaded Nazi concentration camps by living as a fugitive from 1938 to 1945, hunted in almost every country in Europe by the Nazis and their collaborators in Belgium, France, Luxembourg and Austria. |
| The Nazis had many helpers in capturing those they would tattoo, he explained. | The Nazis had many helpers in capturing those they would tattoo, he explained. |
| The high point of his talk was the account of his leap from the train carrying him and a thousand other Jewish deportees to Auschwitz on Nov. 5, 1942. It was a French train, he said, operated by the state-owned railway, the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français, or S.N.C.F. | The high point of his talk was the account of his leap from the train carrying him and a thousand other Jewish deportees to Auschwitz on Nov. 5, 1942. It was a French train, he said, operated by the state-owned railway, the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer Français, or S.N.C.F. |
| His escape, he said, came after he and another man had studied the railway guards’ surveillance routines. Prying loose the bars of a small window, they timed their jump from Convoy 42 on a curved stretch of rail somewhere in eastern France. Once the train slowed, they had “to avoid the floodlights, which the guards aimed over the entire length of the concave curvature of the train” at such junctures, he wrote in his 1998 memoir, “Leap Into Darkness: Seven Years on the Run in Wartime Europe.” | His escape, he said, came after he and another man had studied the railway guards’ surveillance routines. Prying loose the bars of a small window, they timed their jump from Convoy 42 on a curved stretch of rail somewhere in eastern France. Once the train slowed, they had “to avoid the floodlights, which the guards aimed over the entire length of the concave curvature of the train” at such junctures, he wrote in his 1998 memoir, “Leap Into Darkness: Seven Years on the Run in Wartime Europe.” |
| Mr. Bretholz, who lived in Pikesville, Md., repeated that account to students in the Baltimore area for years. Then, in 2000, it became eyewitness evidence in a class-action lawsuit seeking reparations from S.N.C.F. | Mr. Bretholz, who lived in Pikesville, Md., repeated that account to students in the Baltimore area for years. Then, in 2000, it became eyewitness evidence in a class-action lawsuit seeking reparations from S.N.C.F. |
| The lawsuit died in 2011, after the United States Supreme Court declined to review a lower court’s ruling that the case was outside American jurisdiction. But when S.N.C.F. became involved in commuter rail contracts in Maryland, Mr. Bretholz became a prominent voice in the reparations effort. | The lawsuit died in 2011, after the United States Supreme Court declined to review a lower court’s ruling that the case was outside American jurisdiction. But when S.N.C.F. became involved in commuter rail contracts in Maryland, Mr. Bretholz became a prominent voice in the reparations effort. |
| “All I want is a declaration — a forceful declaration — of: ‘We did something very wrong, something inhumane. We sent people to their deaths,’ ” Mr. Bretholz told The Washington Post in an interview this year. | “All I want is a declaration — a forceful declaration — of: ‘We did something very wrong, something inhumane. We sent people to their deaths,’ ” Mr. Bretholz told The Washington Post in an interview this year. |
| He became the star witness at congressional hearings on the proposed Holocaust Rail Justice Act, which would allow Holocaust victims and their families to sue S.N.C.F. in the American courts. He testified a half dozen times before panels of the Maryland State Legislature to support legislation that would bar S.N.C.F. from bidding on a planned $6 billion high-speed rail system unless it acknowledged its role and agreed to compensate victims. He had been scheduled to testify again in Annapolis on the Monday after his death. | He became the star witness at congressional hearings on the proposed Holocaust Rail Justice Act, which would allow Holocaust victims and their families to sue S.N.C.F. in the American courts. He testified a half dozen times before panels of the Maryland State Legislature to support legislation that would bar S.N.C.F. from bidding on a planned $6 billion high-speed rail system unless it acknowledged its role and agreed to compensate victims. He had been scheduled to testify again in Annapolis on the Monday after his death. |
| S.N.C.F. has long acknowledged that it transported 76,000 Jews and other so-called “undesirables” to Auschwitz from the Drancy internment camp outside Paris. But it has refused to pay reparations, saying it had acted under duress, by orders of France’s German occupiers. | S.N.C.F. has long acknowledged that it transported 76,000 Jews and other so-called “undesirables” to Auschwitz from the Drancy internment camp outside Paris. But it has refused to pay reparations, saying it had acted under duress, by orders of France’s German occupiers. |
| By Mr. Bretholz’s account, however, S.N.C.F. was actively complicit in the horrors of the deportations. The rail operators packed people into cattle cars, he said, leaving barely room to sit. They failed to provide adequate food or water. They were vigilant in keeping their passengers from escaping. | By Mr. Bretholz’s account, however, S.N.C.F. was actively complicit in the horrors of the deportations. The rail operators packed people into cattle cars, he said, leaving barely room to sit. They failed to provide adequate food or water. They were vigilant in keeping their passengers from escaping. |
| Wartime France, he wrote, was “the most important and very venal cog in the wheel of Hitler’s Holocaust co-conspirators.” | Wartime France, he wrote, was “the most important and very venal cog in the wheel of Hitler’s Holocaust co-conspirators.” |
| Leo Bretholz was born on March 6, 1921, in Vienna, the oldest of three children of Max and Dora Fischmann Bretholz, immigrants from Poland. His father, a tailor and amateur Yiddish actor, died in 1930. His mother worked as an embroiderer to support Leo and his two sisters, Henriette and Edith. | Leo Bretholz was born on March 6, 1921, in Vienna, the oldest of three children of Max and Dora Fischmann Bretholz, immigrants from Poland. His father, a tailor and amateur Yiddish actor, died in 1930. His mother worked as an embroiderer to support Leo and his two sisters, Henriette and Edith. |
| He left Vienna at 17 with a train ticket purchased by his mother, amid the growing menace of Nazi control, arriving in Trier, at the western edge of Germany. He then forded the Sauer River into Luxembourg and found his way to Belgium. | He left Vienna at 17 with a train ticket purchased by his mother, amid the growing menace of Nazi control, arriving in Trier, at the western edge of Germany. He then forded the Sauer River into Luxembourg and found his way to Belgium. |
| Mr. Bretholz traveled on a kind of Underground Railroad for the stateless Jews of Europe for the next seven years. He found sanctuary with relatives, in Jewish ghettos, among orders of Roman Catholic nuns and priests. He assumed aliases and slept in ditches. Toward the end of the war, he joined a Jewish resistance group known as La Sixième. After the war he settled in Baltimore, where he had relatives. He found work in the textile business, then as a partner in a liquor store, then in the book selling business. | |
| In 1962, he received a letter from the Jewish Community Council of Vienna. It spoke of his mother and two sisters, who had been sent to a Nazi transit ghetto in occupied Poland: | In 1962, he received a letter from the Jewish Community Council of Vienna. It spoke of his mother and two sisters, who had been sent to a Nazi transit ghetto in occupied Poland: |
| “This is to confirm that, according to our records, Mrs. Dora Bretholz, Miss Henriette Bretholz and Miss Edith Bretholz were deported to Izbica on 9 April 1942 and that they do not appear on the list of returnees.” | “This is to confirm that, according to our records, Mrs. Dora Bretholz, Miss Henriette Bretholz and Miss Edith Bretholz were deported to Izbica on 9 April 1942 and that they do not appear on the list of returnees.” |
| Mr. Bretholz’s daughter Edie Norton, who confirmed her father’s death, at his home, quoted the letter in an email Wednesday. She said his receiving the bureaucratic notification decades after he last saw his family made her father determined to tell his family’s story. Besides her, Mr. Bretholz is survived by another daughter, Denise Harris; a son, Myron; a half-sister, Helen Meyer; and four grandchildren. His wife of 57 years, Florence Cohen Bretholz, died in 2009. | Mr. Bretholz’s daughter Edie Norton, who confirmed her father’s death, at his home, quoted the letter in an email Wednesday. She said his receiving the bureaucratic notification decades after he last saw his family made her father determined to tell his family’s story. Besides her, Mr. Bretholz is survived by another daughter, Denise Harris; a son, Myron; a half-sister, Helen Meyer; and four grandchildren. His wife of 57 years, Florence Cohen Bretholz, died in 2009. |
| At one of his last talks in a classroom several years ago, filmed for a short documentary, “See You Soon Again,” Mr. Bretholz said that in his considered view there was no real distinction between Holocaust “survivors” and everybody else. | At one of his last talks in a classroom several years ago, filmed for a short documentary, “See You Soon Again,” Mr. Bretholz said that in his considered view there was no real distinction between Holocaust “survivors” and everybody else. |
| “If that evil had conquered the world,” he said, “we wouldn’t be here. You are all survivors.” | “If that evil had conquered the world,” he said, “we wouldn’t be here. You are all survivors.” |