Reverend Leslie Henry Hardman MBE HCF (born 18 February 1913 – 7 October 2008) was an Orthodox Rabbi and the first Jewish British Army chaplain to enter Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, an experience "that made him a public figure, both within his community and outside it".

He married his wife Josi (1911–2007) on 14 October 1936, two years after becoming minister of the Jewish community at St. Anne's, where he was also the shochet, or ritual slaughterer.

[3] On the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, Hardman enlisted in the Army Chaplains' Department, being stationed in Hertfordshire with the East Central District of the Eastern Command.

On 17 April 1945, Hardman entered Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, two days after it had been liberated by British military forces, under the command of fellow Welshman Brigadier Glyn Hughes.

Later he wrote of his experience at the camp, "Towards me came what seemed to be the remnants of a holocaust – a staggering mass of blackened skin and bones, held together somehow with filthy rags.

'My God, the dead walk', I cried aloud, but I did not recognise my voice... [peering] at the double star, the emblem of Jewry on my tunice – one poor creature touched and then stroked the badge of my faith, and finding that it was real murmured, 'Rabbiner, Rabbiner'.

He also served as chaplain to the psychiatric unit at Edgware Hospital and was a strong supporter of the Holocaust Educational Trust.

[1] Early in the 1960s the North Western Reform Synagogue invited a young German pastor and some teenage members of his church to visit their congregation in London.

In response, the synagogue's rabbi, Dow Marmur, invited Hardman to attend a public meeting that had been organised to welcome them.

"[3]Hardman was appointed MBE in 1998 for his services to the Jewish community, and in 1995 was honoured by the Simon Wiesenthal Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles.