A group of Stagg High School students can brag to their friends they met Leon Leyson this summer – even though most of the friends probably have no idea who he is.
Leyson isn’t an athlete, famous actor or rock star.
But the 80-year-old, who lives in Los Angeles and gives speeches across the country, is a historic figure. He was the youngest person on Oskar Schindler’s list in 1943, made famous in 1993 by the movie “Schindler’s List.” Leyson and members of his family were among 1,200 Polish Jews who were spared death from the German Nazis because they worked in Schindler’s factory.
A group of 19 Stagg students traveled to Europe in June as a part of teacher Carol Czworniak’s history honors program. They met Leyson at their hotel in Krakow, Poland, just a day after touring the Schindler factory, the Auschwitz concentration camp and some of the former Jewish ghettos.
“To meet him after going to Auschwitz and Schindler’s factory where everything happened was mind blowing,” student Micki Burton said.
Leyson was in Krakow for the grand opening of the Oscar Schindler’s Factory Museum, which is now a museum. He met Czworniak and some of the student’s parents the night before, and when the teacher told him her students were studying the Holocaust, he met with them for a talk the next morning.
“I felt really nervous about taking a picture with him,” Emily Santos said. “But he was really nice and gracious about it.”
Though they took pictures, no one in the group asked for autographs, thinking it would be awkward.
“You would be asking for an autograph for the rough patches in his life,” student Brian Bere said.
They may have to explain to their friends who Leyson is, but the students said it’s worth it.
“You can brag about meeting a rock star or athlete, but they come and go,” student Seamus Naughton said. “But with someone like this, you only have only a certain window of opportunity to meet him. That moment of history is so far in the past but it will be there forever.”
