| Oldest Nazi Concentration Camp Survivor to Speak
A Year of Democracy Event at Moorpark College
Seventy years after his imprisonment in a Nazi concentration camp, the Holocaust’s oldest male survivor Leopold Engleitner will speak at Moorpark College May 22 and 23 as part of a major U.S. speaking tour.
The 103-year-old Austrian, whose courage and torture was chronicled in the book and prize-winning documentary film “Unbroken Will,” will be accompanied by his friend and biographer, Bernhard Rammerstorfer.
Engleitner, who entered the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1939 as a 33-year-old, was offered his freedom in exchange for renouncing his faith as a Jehovah’s Witness. Instead he submitted to Nazi persecution and torture, enduring years of imprisonment that reduced him to a weight of sixty-two pounds.
Engleitner’s story was lost to the pages of history until a chance meeting over half a century later with author and filmmaker Rammerstorfer. This meeting marked the beginning of a remarkable and extraordinary friendship that resulted in Rammerstorfer’s documentary “Unbroken Will.”
Despite his exceptional age, this will be Mr. Engleitner’s third speaking tour in the United States. Prior coming to Moorpark he will speak at Harvard University on May 4, and the Florida Holocaust Museum, on May 6. Other Los Angeles area speaking engagements are planned.
Engleitner and Rammerstorfer will be hosted at Moorpark College as the final event in the 2008-09 Year of Democracy program on Friday May 22, at 7:30 PM and Saturday May 23, 2009, at 6:30 PM. The Friday event will be webcast around the world via http://video.moorparkcollege.edu/.
These two events are free to the public and seating can be reserved by emailingutai@vcccd.edu.
Speakers will include Robert Buckley, consultant to the United States Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, Dan Brown, Holocaust historian and author and filmmaker Ferenc Gutai.
“Leopold Engleitner's willingness to stand up for his righteous convictions in the face of tyranny shows us that we cannot ever surrender our beliefs to the dark side,” said Brown.
For more information visit: www.unbrokenwill.com | 