Leah Linton enjoyed a happy childhood in Austria, filled with friends and carefree days spent in the parks of Vienna with her brother and sister. That all changed when she was 12, and Hitler occupied her beloved country. “My best friend came to say she we couldn’t be friends any longer because I was Jewish,” Leah told the Taft community during a virtual Morning Meeting. “I didn’t know or understand that being Jewish was a crime. And I cried. Overnight friends, neighbors, and teachers became to be enemies.”
What followed, Leah said, cannot be forgotten. Her sister was sent to Israel, while she and her mother escaped to the United States, where they settled with relatives. Her father and brother were not as fortunate: her brother was tortured in Dachau; her father among the six million Jews killed during the Holocaust.
After her Morning Meeting talk, Leah spoke privately with School Chaplain Robert Ganung.
“She emphatically wanted me to know that, in no uncertain terms, she never lost faith in God or in her belief in the goodness of humanity.”
Leah Linton’s virtual visit to Taft made possible by the Albert Family Holocaust Study Fund, and coincides with Yom HaShoah, National Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Albert Family Holocaust Study Fund, was created by Burt and Sylvia Albert, parents of Eric Albert '77, Jonathan Albert '79 and Deborah A. Rosmarin '82, to enable the school to hear from guest speakers who are recognized authorities on the study of the Holocaust during WWII. It is hoped that this experience will help engender a continuing knowledge and enable us all to learn from this tragic lesson in history.
Photo courtesy Zach Schonfeld/Newsweek