"If you are a survivor, at some point, you are going to have to ask yourself, 'why did I survive?' And that puts a sort of burden to accomplish something with your life because you've got to, number one, deserved to have survived and number two, live life for those who didn't."
Letter from Leon's father, Rabbi Kalman Chameides, to Metropolitan Sheptytski, October 1942
Metropolitan Sheptytski, who agreed to hide and care for Leon and his brother.
Metropolitan Sheptytski, who agreed to hide and care for Leon and his brother.
Letter confirming Leon and Herbert’s permission to travel to England, September 24, 1945.
Portrait image of Leon's parents in pre-war years
Portrait image of Leon's parents at their wedding
Leon and his brother Herbert, about 1939.
PREWAR sermon of Rabbi Kalman Chameides, Jewish Children as Martyrs, August 1935
Family photo, ca. 1939
Leon's birthplace. It was built in 1900 and destroyed by the Nazis in 1939.
With the invasion of the Soviet Union, mobile killing units began conducting massacres of Jewish populations in this area. Lvov, Leon’s home in 1941, can be found near the western border with the Nazi established General Gouvernment (western Poland).
Map depicting the established ghettos and German-occupied territory in 1939-1944.
Graduation of Leon Chameides from Yeshiva University in New York; 1955
Leon translated and published his father's essays, mostly written between 1932 and 1936.
Document noting death of Rabbi Kalman Chameides, father of Leon, 5th entry down
Leon, with two Russian soldiers in England, ca. 1946
Lviv - Univ - Shchyrets
Public Order, 1941, in Germany, Russian and Polish, ordering the Jewish population to wear the identifier white armband with the blue Star of David.
The artwork Getto IV 1956 is by Marek Obrtlander and is a memorial to the martyred Jews of Szczerzec which is where Leon's father family was from and where he spent part of the war.
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