The
Boy on the Wooden Box is a memoir recalling the heroic acts of Oskar
Schindler by the memories of a young boy he saved from a horrible genocidal
murder. Leon Leyson was a young adolescent at the time of the holocaust in WWII. His
memoir uses his chilling and life-shaking personal experiences to paint a vivid
portrait of what is was like to be among over 1,000 of the Jews Oskar Schindler
saved from an otherwise inevitable death.
Leyson’s life begins in rural Poland. He grows up in a normal and carefree environment. When his father moves his family to Krakow because of his job, WWII breaks out. Leyson’s father was soon arrested once the German troops invaded Poland leaving his family with nothing to sustain them. After his father was released, he had a hard time finding a job due to his newly weakened state. However, not shortly after, Leyson’s father was employed without pay but given shelter and food for him and his family. He worked for Oskar Schindler in his factory,
After the Nazis began purging the ghettos in Poland and sending Jews to death camps, Leyson’s family was coming apart. His older brother had been shipped to, what they were told were, “new ghettos”. Although when refugees had escaped and returned, they had told horror stories about the concentration camps.
Eventually, the ghettos were all cleared and the prisoners held by the Nazis were being shipped to labor camps. Leyson didn’t know how he was going to survive and was relying solely on the luck that Schindler would add Leyson to his list of employees. Although he wasn’t originally on the list, after protesting and demanding to be employed there, Schindler accepted him and therefore saved his life.
Leyson’s life begins in rural Poland. He grows up in a normal and carefree environment. When his father moves his family to Krakow because of his job, WWII breaks out. Leyson’s father was soon arrested once the German troops invaded Poland leaving his family with nothing to sustain them. After his father was released, he had a hard time finding a job due to his newly weakened state. However, not shortly after, Leyson’s father was employed without pay but given shelter and food for him and his family. He worked for Oskar Schindler in his factory,
After the Nazis began purging the ghettos in Poland and sending Jews to death camps, Leyson’s family was coming apart. His older brother had been shipped to, what they were told were, “new ghettos”. Although when refugees had escaped and returned, they had told horror stories about the concentration camps.
Eventually, the ghettos were all cleared and the prisoners held by the Nazis were being shipped to labor camps. Leyson didn’t know how he was going to survive and was relying solely on the luck that Schindler would add Leyson to his list of employees. Although he wasn’t originally on the list, after protesting and demanding to be employed there, Schindler accepted him and therefore saved his life.