The Boy on the Wooden Box

 

   The Boy on the Wooden Box: How the Impossible Became Possible

                                                     August 18, 2015

“Much like The Boy In the Striped Pajamas or The Book Thief,” this remarkable memoir from Leon Leyson, one of the youngest children to survive the Holocaust on Oskar Schindler’s list, “brings to readers a story of bravery and the fight for a chance to live” (VOYA).

This, the only memoir published by a former Schindler’s list child, perfectly captures the innocence of a small boy who goes through the unthinkable. Leon Leyson (born Leib Lezjon) was only ten years old when the Nazis invaded Poland and his family was forced to relocate to the Krakow ghetto. With incredible luck, perseverance, and grit, Leyson was able to survive the sadism of the Nazis, including that of the demonic Amon Goeth, commandant of Plaszow, the concentration camp outside Krakow.

Ultimately, it was the generosity and cunning of one man, Oskar Schindler, who saved Leon Leyson’s life, and the lives of his mother, his father, and two of his four siblings, by adding their names to his list of workers in his factory—a list that became world renowned: Schindler’s list.

Told with an abundance of dignity and a remarkable lack of rancor and venom, The Boy on the Wooden Box is a legacy of hope, a memoir unlike anything you’ve ever read.

Editorial Reviews

Review

* “Leyson, who died in January at age 83, was No. 289 on Schindler’s list and its youngest member. He was just 13 

when Leyson’s father convinced Oskar Schindler to let “Little Leyson” (as Schindler knew him) and other family 

members find refuge in the Emalia factory; Leyson was so small he had to stand on a box to work the machinery. 

Leyson and his coauthors give this wrenching memoir some literary styling, but the book is at its most powerful when 

Leyson relays the events in a straightforward manner, as if in a deposition, from the shock of seeing his once-proud 

father shamed by anti-Semitism to the deprivation that defined his youth. Schindler remains a kindly but enigmatic 

figure in Leyson’s retelling, occasionally doting but usually distant. Leyson makes it clear that being “Schindler Jews” 

offered a thread of hope, but it never shielded them from the chaos and evil that surrounded them. Readers will close 

the book feeling that they have made a genuinely personal connection to this remarkable man.” (Publishers Weekly, July 1, 2013, *STARRED REVIEW)

* "A posthumous Holocaust memoir from the youngest person on Oskar Schindler’s list.

Completed before his death in January 2013, Leyson’s narrative opens with glowing but not falsely idyllic childhood 

memories of growing up surrounded by friends and relatives in the Polish village of Narewka and then the less 

intimate but still, to him, marvelous city of Kraków. The Nazi occupation brought waves of persecution and forced 

removals to first a ghetto and then a labor camp—but since his father, a machinist, worked at the enamelware factory 

that Schindler opportunistically bought, 14-year-old “Leib” (who was so short he had to stand on the titular box to 

work), his mother and two of his four older siblings were eventually brought into the fold. Along with harrowing but not 

lurid accounts of extreme privation and casual brutality, the author recalls encounters with the quietly kind and heroic 

Schindler on the way to the war’s end, years spent at a displaced-persons facility in Germany and at last emigration 

to the United States. Leyson tacks just a quick sketch of his adult life and career onto the end and closes by 

explaining how he came to break his long silence about his experiences. Family photos (and a picture of the famous 

list with the author’s name highlighted) add further personal touches to this vivid, dramatic account.

Significant historical acts and events are here put into unique perspective by a participant." (Kirkus Reviews, August 1, 2013, *STARRED REVIEW)

“Tragic remembrances of war's sufferings often go untold. However, if we are to "study war no more" we need to hear 

them. After long silence Leon Leyson has written his World War II memoir. I am an African American veteran of 

World War II. I survived the invasion of Normandy. Leon Leyson's story returned me to a time when the life of each 

step could be one's last. THE BOY ON THE WOODEN BOX is a heartbreaking story that ends, mercifully, with a 

heart restored." (Ashley Bryan, multiple Coretta Scott King Award-winning author, and former GI.)

  About  the author 

Leon Leyson was one of the youngest members of Schindler’s List. He brings a unique perspective to the history of the Holocaust and a powerful message of courage and humanity. Believing that no one would be interested in his story, he rarely spoke about his experiences until the film Schindler’s List received worldwide attention.

A graduate of Los Angeles City College; California State University, Los Angeles; and Pepperdine University, he taught at Huntington Park High School in Huntington Park, California, for thirty-nine years. In recognition of his many accomplishments as educator and witness to the Holocaust, Mr. Leyson was awarded an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Chapman University.

Mr. Leyson passed away in January 2013, leaving behind his wife, Lis; their two children; and six grandchildren.