Leon Greenman OBE (18 December 1910 – 7 March 2008) was a British anti-fascism campaigner and survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
[2] He also enjoyed singing, and met his future wife Esther ("Else") van Dam at an amateur operatic society in the 1930s.
[2] He considered returning to live in England in the 1930s, but decided to stay in the Netherlands after hearing Neville Chamberlain's promise of "peace for our time" on the radio in 1938.
When the camp was evacuated in early 1945, Greenman was sent on a 90-kilometre death march to Gleiwitz, and then taken in open cattle trucks to Buchenwald.
He lived in Ilford,[8] working on a market stall for 40 years, and also performing as a tenor under the stage name "Leon Maure".
[4] After hearing Colin Jordan, the leader of the National Socialist Movement, addressing a rally in Trafalgar Square in 1962, Greenman determined to tell his story to anyone who would listen.
Late into his life, he would visit schools to bear witness to the Holocaust, showing them his tattoo and telling them his story.
[7] He donated photographs and mementos to the Jewish Museum in Finchley, which opened a permanent gallery showing his collection in 1995.
Into his nineties Greenman was to be found in the museum every Sunday, willing to talk to anyone about his experiences[6] and he also guided tours around the camp at Auschwitz.
[7][9] In 1993, he joined the demonstration calling for the closure of the British National Party headquarters in Welling in south-east London.