Leslie Blau
Leslie Blau (known in Hungarian language as Blau Laszlo) was a noted author, historian, and survivor of the Holocaust. [1]
Blau was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1921. He studied in the Jewish High School of Budapest. As a youngster, he spent his summer months in the town of Bonyhád. He survived the horrors committed to the Jews during World War II by a stroke of luck, and after the war, he settled in the town on Bonyhad, where he married a local girl, Sara Kuttner. In 1956, during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, he and his family fled communist Hungary for a safer haven: USA. He arrived in Boro Park, Brooklyn, New York where he has lived for over fifty years.[2]
After five years of extensive investigation and research, Mr. Blau finally published his work, "Bonyhad: A Destroyed Community" in 1994. . In 2008, a Hungarian translation of the book was published with the amended title, "Bonyhad: A Destroyed Jewish Community", in Hungarian, "Bonyhad: Egy Elpusztitot Zsido Kozosseg". The author visited Bonyhad with his wife, daughter and nephew for a presentation of the book at Bonyhad's City Hall, where he was presented a Distinguished Citizen of Bonyhad award by Mayor Potapi Arpad. Just prior to his trip to Hungary he was the subject of a profile, "A Brooklyn Gentleman", by Reuters correspondent, Mirjam Donath.[3]
Mr. Blau's research has been cited by such prestigious scholars as Sir Martin Gilbert.[4]
As an active member of the Jewish community in Boro Park, Mr. Blau sits on the executive committee of B'nai Israel of Linden Heights.[5] He also hosts there a yearly event to recount tales of the Holocaust for the benefit of the next generation.[6]
He died in October 2021 at the age of 100[7].
Works[]
- Bonyhad: A Destroyed Community (1994, Shengold Publishings) (ISBN 0884001784), original edition
- Bonyhad: Egy Elpusztitott Zsido Kozosseg (2008, Soha Tobbe Soa! Alapitvany) (ISBN 9789630661003), Hungarian translation
- בונ'האד: חורבן קהילה יהודיה, Hebrew translation (edited by Rabbi Reuven Chaim Klein)
References[]
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- 1921 births
- 2021 deaths
- Holocaust survivors
- Hungarian Jews
- Hungarian historians
- Hungarian writers
- Hungarian emigrants to the United States
- People from Budapest
- People from Borough Park, Brooklyn
- Jewish history stubs
- Hungarian academic biography stubs
- European historian stubs
- Hungarian history stubs