Begin Your Journey With Leap Into Darkness: Seven Years On The Run In Wartime Europe Planned By Leo Bretholz Issued As Digital Format

Germans invaded Vienna,year old Leo was encouraged by his family to flee Austria to save his life, Leo spentyears on the run, He was caught several times, Put into internment camps and jail and always manged to escape, staying one step ahead of his captors.
He found safe houses and sympathizers along the way and ended up working for the French Resistance movement inuntil the war's end.
An incredible story. Great read. I loved the book and actually met the author and his wife when I bought the book from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The book is an exciting read about Leo Bretholz attempts to escape the Nazi concentration camps at all costs, like jumping from the trains and going into hiding.
Its been a few years since I've read the book so I don't remember all the details but I do remember not being able to put it down.
Highly recommended. Interesting but loaded with too many relatives to keep up with, I can't in good conscience write a review of the atrocities faced by such a brave young

man as Leo Bretholz.
I can only tell you that this book is a fresh perspective on survival and a testament to courage and perseverance.
Please read this book. Very interesting book. I dont normally like biographies because they get boring and mundane, But Leos story was always changing, Some of his decisions were really selfish and caused harm to others, but he did admit that.
And it was a scary/stressful situation foryears, His bravery is to be commended, although most of his bravery was for himself, He didnt help others get to safely until the very end, and only when he was safe.
He had opportunities to save others and chose to only save himself, This book is a true story about a Jewish boy who evaded the Nazis and survived the Holocaust by crisscrossing Europe.


Awesome book. The best thing about it isnt the story itself, but the striking insights of this young man caught in the insanity of those times:

I stood at the edge of one crowd, held back from interfering, yet knowing there was nothing I could do to stop the cruelty.
I watched people on their hands and knees forced to scrub the street, They kept their eyes downcast in fear and humiliation, I glanced nervously about and wondered if some bullies might come for me, Those on their knees struggled for some sense of dignity I watched them, because to turn away was to cease witnessing the overture to acts of murder.

overture to acts of murder, To me those words are a reminder of what the true implications of prejudice are, And how important it is to be real about prejudice in my own life and within myself.


Murder can take different forms, You can murder someone physically, You can kill their spirit, Or strip them of their humanity, This book illustrates in heartbreaking detail how the Nazis became experts in all the many shades of murder.
Leap into Darkness: Seven Years on the Run in Wartime Europe is a firsthand account of how a young man fearlessly evaded being captured by Nazi sympathizers during World War II.
Leo left his home in Austria when Nazism started infiltrating and imposing control and restrictions upon Jewish people, including taking away their livelihoods, housing, freedoms, imposing incarceration and deportation to work camps and concentration camps and worse.
Leo's parents told him not to trust anybody, as a stranger who you might trust could easily be led to report you to authorities.

At one point, Leo kept his holy book in a suitcase, which had to be left behind when he was hidden in an abbey along with a German soldier who he befriended.
Years later, when he wrote to the soldier asking him to mail his items, the soldier refused, as it was too much of a risk.
I was relieved that the soldier did not reveal the mailing address to others,
Leo's "crime" was that he had the will to live, and he had nothing to lose in making heroic attempts to avoid capture.
When he and a friend were on a train headed toward a concentration camp, the two young men figured out how to use a sweater to pry apart metal bars over the train window opening, by getting the sweater wet with waste from the train compartment floor, wrapping each sleeve around the metal bars, and pulling for hours until a space opened just large enough to fit a human.
The young men jumped as the train was moving and were almost caught by a search team.

Many relatives and friends helped Leo by hiding him, until his lack of authentic identification papers or his carelessness made him attract attention to himself or to the people helping to hide him, which would force his hand to hideout elsewhere immediately.
Leo fell in love with Anne, but as they grew out of their teenaged years she fell in love with someone else.
Leo could feel that they had been growing apart, anyway,
Leo chronicles such a life of heartache and despair, that it is such a wonderfully written sad account, that proves hard to put down.
His story is an important one which needs to be told, so that today's readers will know about the atrocities committed during World War II.
Many of Leo's family members had become separated, and it is devastating to know that many of them were killed.

Leap into Darkness: Seven Years on the Run in Wartime Europe is an important story that needs to be told to readers in middle school through adulthood.

I was lucky enough to hear Leo Bretholz speak in person several years ago, He told a fantastical story full of escapes and nearmisses, but what he told was not a story but his life.
In 'Leap into Darkness' Leo tells his story, growing up as a tailor's son in Vienna, he loses his father at age nine and that is only the beginning of the losses he will suffer.
When he is, Hitler invaded Austria, Leo Bretholz leaves Vienna and his family only days before Kristallnacht, He will spend the next seven years trying to stay ahead of the Nazis and all those who follow them.
Leon Bretholtzs story is different from many others I have read, He was on the run from the Nazis and their collaborators for seven years, He ended up in Maryland and I learned of him when he planned to testify at the Maryland Capitol.
A subsidiary of the French railroad SNCF, which had transported so many Jews to certain death, was bidding on a contract in Maryland.
I remember Mr. Bretholtz asking in response to the claim that SNCF had no choice in the matter: Why did they invoice the Nazis for services rendered if they had no choice I paraphrase.
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