“Maybe you will do something with this some day?”
These were the words of a father to his son in 1975.
My dad spoke these words to me as he laid down his pen for the final time after spending three years writing his 500-page memoir of WWII. “Maybe I will dad.” A seemingly benign answer from an 18-year-old sports-crazed kid. A kid who was more concerned with the scores of his favorite teams, than the scores of innocent people who lost their lives in the deadliest of wars.
Leon Klott was born on the 9th day of the 9th month in 1909, and like a cat with nine lives, through courage, wit, fortitude and a great deal of luck, he was able to survive the Holocaust. His memoir was handwritten in Yiddish, and thus would sit like a great mystery even to his own children who did not speak or understand enough Yiddish to read it. Leon passed in 1985, and his story sat in a drawer for another 15 years before I began to seek translation. This was not an easy task, and many mechanically dry translators were rejected.
After scouring the country, finally a translator in Washington D.C. was able to “speak with my father’s voice.” Translation would take another five years as she only wanted 15 or 20 pages at a time. His story would unfold like a mini-series, always leaving me amazed, mortified, and impatiently waiting to see how he would survive his next moment of truth. In 2006, after 31 years and meticulous translation, his translated story was finally complete, and his family could read his remarkable story of survival. Content to have his story finally told in English for our family’s history, his words sat for another 15 years until worldwide discontent seems to have us moving in the direction of another world tragedy.
In 2021, and with the help of local Ashland designer Larry Addington, a cover was designed, maps and photos were added, and the manuscript was formatted for book printing. The end result is now a book titled Before My Eyes: A Memoir of Survival, Courage, and Luck. It is Leon’s fully translated memoir, now ready to be shared with the world. It is not for the faint of heart. With anti-Semitism on the rise, Holocaust denial circulating, and another war in Europe, it is time to let his story be an important reminder of the atrocities that were committed during WWII. That was his hope…a hope that somehow we never forget, and that he might help the world learn from these heinous acts, and thereby save us from another Holocaust. Leon should not have made it out of WWII, and his words should have gone to the grave, just like the stories of 39 million other victims of this horrific war. Escapes, espionage, bloody beatings, dehumanizing trauma and the loss of most of his loved ones along the way compelled Leon to write his story down. Those words he left me with some 47 years ago, as he closed his blue binder, are finally being fulfilled. This is a son’s way of honoring his father.
Before My Eyes is available at RebelHeart Books in J’ville, as well as at Amazon Books.
Arnie Klott is a long time resident of Jacksonville where he lives with his wife Terri and daughter Sara.