Main content

Auschwitz survivor: I don't hate Germans

Seventy years since the liberation of Auschwitz, survivor Leslie Kleinman says he does not hate Germans, despite losing all members of his immediate family in death camps.

Seventy years since the liberation of Auschwitz, survivor Leslie Kleinman says he does not hate Germans, despite losing all members of his immediate family in death camps.

The son of a rabbi and one of eight children, Leslie was just 14 when his family was uprooted from Romania and sent to Auschwitz.

Now 85, Leslie spoke of how he saw a man working next to him shot for straightening his back, and feared he would also be shot for getting sick on one occasion.

He now lectures in schools, teaching children about the dangers of prejudice, and later in the interview he spoke of how he changed the mind of one Muslim boy who said his father 鈥渉ated Jews".

鈥淸The boy] said, I can see so much love in your heart. So much no hate whatsoever. I promise you I鈥檓 going to change, I鈥檓 not going to listen to my father鈥 he was only about 14, this boy. The same age I was at the camps."

Asked what he thought of Holocaust deniers, Leslie said, 鈥淚 wish it wouldn't have existed. I would have my family, I would have my sisters, I would have my life back again.鈥

This clip is originally from 5 live Breakfast on Tuesday 27 January 2015.

Release date:

Duration:

5 minutes

This clip is from