Yesterday evening, I went to a once in a lifetime event on campus. The Andover Jewish Society brought an alumn to campus who had survived the Holocaust. Leo Ullman (class of 1957) is one of the few remaining Holocaust survivors left in the world.
Ullman’s story was absolutely gripping. He tells it from a first-hand case like no other history book. Ullman was just four years old when the Nazi’s attacked Holland. His grandfather owned a diamond cutting business, and his parents were both well-off and well-connected. Ullman believes that his family survived because they had resources and the connections to get themselves into hiding. When the war began, Ullman’s parents sent him into hiding with a police officer. This police officer, a connection of his mother’s, risked his life to take care of Ullman. Meanwhile, Ullman’s parents went into hiding for 2.5 years in an attic. After the war, Ullman’s family reconnected. At the time, Leo was about seven years old, but he had spent the entirety of his life that he could remember with the police officer. Ullman mentions in his talk that he didn’t experience the horrors as most others did, partially because he lived with an officer but also because he was young.
One day, two gaunt people showed up at the officer’s house, claiming to be Leo’s parents. Hiding in the attic for 2.5 years, they couldn’t even walk properly. At this point in the story, Ullman claims that no writing can ever retell what his parents experienced during the war. He recalls that for 2.5 years, his parents lived listening to every single step outside the house and every knock on the door, knowing that knock or those footsteps could be the end of their lives. Ullman’s reunion with his parents marked the end of the war, and they moved to the United States. Leo Ullman went to PA for high school, later attending Harvard and Columbia.
Ullman came from a privileged background. His family nevertheless experienced the trauma of WW2 and the Holocaust. At the beginning of the talk, Ullman mentions having had the opportunity to escape. Ullman and his family lived in Holland and at the time, everyone thought it would be safe to stay because Germany had not attacked Holland during WW1. These beliefs proved incorrect when Germany bombed a port, causing the government to flee and set up camp in England as a “government in exile”.
The most striking part of Ullman’s entire talk to me was this: during the war, there was a 3-4 day gap between the overthrowing of the Holland government and Germany’s takeover. It was during this time that people who had money who take a ship to England; these 3-4 days were an escape period. Ullman and his family had gone to the ports to try to board a ship. They also had the funds to do it, but they didn’t have the patience. The ports were bustling with what seemed like the entire country trying to board a ship. Through the chaos, his parents made the decision to wait and come back another day when it was less crowded. The next time they came back, the Germans had sealed the port and there was no way to escape.
A seemingly small decision made by his parents in the heat of chaos caused his family to remain in Holland during the Holocaust. I cannot imagine who different Ullman’s life would have been if he had escaped during that period. I appreciate Ullman for coming to our campus to speak. It was an honor being able to listen to him and truly enlightening. Ullman was young during the war and protected by a policeman so he didn’t experience the war as most people did. Nevertheless, for the remaining years of his life, he lived with his parents who really did experience the terror of it in the United States. It was their experience he sought to retell.
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