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    My Voice: Leo Stein
    My Voice: Leo Stein
    My Voice: Leo Stein
    Ebook89 pages32 minutes

    My Voice: Leo Stein

    By The Fed

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    About this ebook

    Leo Stein was born in 1922 in the German town of Pforzheim. Growing up in a Jewish family in Germany, Leo witnessed first-hand the rise of the Nazi regime and the horrors of Kristallnacht. Thanks to a Jewish school in Liverpool who granted Leo the promise of a scholarship, he was able to get a visa and escape Germany just before the outbreak of war.

    Leo describes the kindness of families in Liverpool who provided food and shelter for the new arrivals, as well as the support from entities like the Jewish Refugee Committee. Leo settled in Manchester and was later joined by his uncle and brother, with whom he grew a successful menswear clothing company in Salford. He married Helen and had two children.

    Leo’s book is part of the My Voice book collection, a stand-alone project of The Fed, the leading Jewish social care charity in Manchester, dedicated to preserving the life stories of Holocaust survivors and refugees from Nazi persecution who settled in the UK. The oral history, which is recorded and transcribed, captures their entire lives from before, during and after the war years. The books are written in the words of the survivor so that future generations can always hear their voice. The My Voice book collection is a valuable resource for Holocaust awareness and education.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherManchester University Press
    Release dateSep 10, 2024
    ISBN9781526186577
    My Voice: Leo Stein

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      Book preview

      My Voice - The Fed

      Chapter 1

      My family

      I was born Leo Stein on 22 June 1922 in a town called Pforzheim. It is in a German province facing Strasbourg in one corner and facing Switzerland in another.

      My full Hebrew name is Yosef Aryeh. I am named after Yosef Stein, my paternal grandfather who lived in Vizhnitz, and Aryeh was after my mother’s younger brother, Leibish. He was killed on Erev Yom Kippur in 1917, aged 25, whilst he was a soldier on the Italian Front in the Austrian Army, which he had been forced to join during the First World War. My paternal grandfather Yosef Stein died in 1915 and is buried in Mannheim. My paternal grandmother was Pesseh Stein who died in 1929 and is also buried in Mannheim. They both came to Germany from Vizhnitz.

      My parents, my brother Harry and my maternal grandmother Chana Reich lived with me.

      My mother was called Leah Reich and was born 1 May 1897 in Raniżów which was in Galicia, Poland. My father was Yankel Meier Stein and he was born in Vizhnitz, Bukowina, Northern Romania on 13 March 1893. In Germany, he went by the name of Max. Economic conditions resulted in my father and his family leaving Vizhnitz in about 1912 and moving to Pforzheim in Germany. This was in line with the general trend of the movement of Jews from Eastern Europe to Western Europe in the early 1900s.

      A birth certificate that has been completed using a typewriter. It bears the name of Josef Leo Stein and states that his place of birth is Pforzheim.

      1 My birth certificate issued by the German authorities in January 1932 confirming my date of birth is 22 June 1922

      A birth certificate that has been written out using a typewriter. It has been stamped with one stamp reading ‘Standesamt der Stadt Pforzheim’ and another bearing an emblem of an eagle and swastika.

      2 My mother’s birth certificate issued by the German authorities in October 1938.

      It confirms she was born Lejia Reich on 1 May 1897 in Ranicow, Galizien.

      A young woman sits for a posed photograph. She is wearing a dark-coloured dress and looking at the camera with her face tilted slightly to one side.

      3 My mother Leah, aged 18 in 1915

      A marriage certificate that has been completed using a typewriter. It has been stamped with an emblem featuring an eagle and swastika.

      4 A copy of my parents’ marriage certificate. They were married on 6 May 1920. The certificate was issued on 19 October 1938. The Nazi authorities inserted israelitisch after each of my parents’ names.

      A man sits for a formal photograph in front of a studio backdrop. He wears a suit, tie and has a full beard.

      5 My mother’s brother, Leibish, after whom I am named.

      Leibish is Yiddish for Aryeh. My Hebrew name is Yosef Aryeh.

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