Oldest known concentration camp survivor dead at 107

Leopold Engleitner, a Jehovah’s Witness, survived three concentration and forced labor camps between 1939 and 1945

2 May 2013, 4:42 pm 1

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Leopold Engleitner (photo credit: screen capture YouTube)

VIENNA (AP) — An Austrian organization that tracks the fate of Nazi concentration camp inmates says the oldest known survivor of such a camp has died aged 107.

The Mauthausen Committee said Thursday that Leopold Engleitner died April 21. After refusing to renounce his faith as a Jehovah’s Witness, he survived three concentration camps and forced labor between 1939 and 1945.

He weighed just 28 kilograms — about 60 pounds — on release from the Ravensbrueck camp in 1943 after he agreed to work as farm slave laborer. Later ordered to report to Hitler’s army, Engleitner hid in the Tyrolean countryside until after the war ended.

Engleitner’s life was documented in the book and film “Unbroken Will,” by Austrian film-maker and author Bernhard Rammerstorfer, and he toured Europe and America to share his experiences.