Readers React: A Holocaust survivor who saved himself

To the editor: Your article on France’s deportation of Jews to Auschwitz rekindles the memory of my mother’s cousin, Leo Bretholz. He was among the 2,000 you referenced who did not die in or en route to the camps. (“Holocaust survivors in U.S. say French agreement to pay reparations is long overdue,” Nov. 5)

As related in his 1998 book “Leap Into Darkness,” he and a companion jumped from the train in the middle of the night. Everyone else on that train was murdered in the camps.

His is a cautionary tale in which initiative won the day, not unlike modern heroes who have recently thwarted terrorist attacks, and whose actions energize the “never again” concept needed in a world where unmitigated cruelty is yet to be relegated to dark history.

Leo passed away in 2014 at the age of 93.

Darryl Rehr, Los Angeles

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