Leslie Aigner was born in Nové Zámky, Czechoslovakia. In 1939, the town became part of Hungary. At the time, Aigner was ten years of age. Much of his extended family lived on the same street as he did. During a Passover dinner, perhaps 25 or 30 relatives attended. This all began to come to an end in 1939. Aigner's father's business license was taken away. He could no longer use his two horses to perform his trade as a moving man. He was forced to move his family from their home to the outskirts of Budapest. Meanwhile, Aigner stayed behind with his grandparents to complete his elementary education. In 1943, he said goodbye to his family in Nové Zámky. He did not realize he would never see them again. They all perished in the Holocaust. Aigner went to Budapest and joined his mother, father, and two sisters. His father had found employment in a paper mill. Higher education was forbidden for Jewish children. Consequently, at the age of 14, Aigner was taken by his father to a machine shop so that he could become an apprentice machinist. He was told by his father to learn a trade so that he could support himself. Things for Jews rapidly deteriorated. His father was taken into a forced labor camp. Aigner, along with his mother and two sisters, were made to enter the ghetto on the outskirts of Budapest. The older of his sisters was taken to a barrack to work in a factory as a forced laborer. After a month or so, an Arrow Cross [Annotator's Note: a far right fascist organization founded in Hungary] militiaman made an announcement that the remaining family would be relocated so they could work. The Arrow Cross was similar to the Nazis. Their insignia even resembled the swastika. The family was not told when they would be returning. Each person could pack a limited amount of transportable belongings. Each individual picked the things of most value to them. Aigner's young sister packed a doll. Two days later, trucks arrived at the ghetto to take the people to the railway station. They were initially taken to an abandoned brick factory where space to spread out was limited. From there, they were shoved into cattle cars along with their few belongings. There was a half barrel in the center of the car for necessities. The doors were shut and locked. The passengers were on the way to an unknown destination. It was July 1944 and the heat in the car was extreme. People alternated position near the four small windows for access to fresh air. The windows were covered with barbed wire. At night, the passengers would alternate squatting and standing. That was the way they arrived at Auschwitz.

Leslie Aigner and the other living passengers were ordered out of the cattle car [Annotator's Note: upon their arrival at the Auschwitz concentration camp in July 1944]. Some of the older people did not survive the trip. A selection began which separated the able bodied workers from the older men and the women and children. Aigner was separated from his mother and younger sister. It was the last time he saw either of them. He was shoved in with the able bodied men. As his mother walked away, she never looked back. His younger sister gave her brother a faint wave. He and the other selected men were ordered in single file to face Doctor Mengele [Annotator's Note: Doctor Josef Mengele chose who lived and died at Auschwitz through an initial "selection" process]. Aigner was to learn later that Mengele was the chief medical doctor at Auschwitz. His motion to left or right meant life or death to each individual facing him. Aigner entered the camp. It was a most dehumanizing place. The barracks were previously a Polish horse barracks. There had been 56 horses housed in the barracks. Bunk beds for the inmates were three levels high with ten people in each bunk. There were 800 people in each barrack. There was not enough room for all the inmates to stand at once. When they entered the barracks, they had to go to their bunks. The same happened when they were ordered out of the barracks. There were early morning headcounts no matter whether there was snow, rain or sunshine. They stood for hours until the commandant came and made his own count. The inmates stood five abreast. In the winter, they would shift positions to allow the others to warm themselves a bit. For a person used to a normal upbringing, the brutality and inhumanity was hard to imagine. When it came time for "feeding" each person was given a little gray soup with a bit of potatoes or something in it. They watched each other closely to assure that they got their share of the food. They had determined shortly after arrival that food meant life. Aigner was in Auschwitz for three and a half months. Besides being a killing camp with four crematoria, it was used as a distribution center for slave laborers. The laborers were given work outside of Auschwitz within two or three weeks. When Aigner first observed the smoke coming out of the stacks, he told an older inmate that he thought it might be the bakery. The wiser individual told the new arrival that the people who did not get selected to survive were being burned in the crematoria. Aigner was in disbelief that a cultured country like Germany could be doing such a thing. When a German guard asked for workers, Aigner volunteered. He was lucky because he worked for the next three months in the kitchen cutting up potatoes and cabbage. He managed to steal some of the food for his personal consumption. That helped him survive. Aigner witnessed the Germans not adhering to the Geneva Conference agreements on the humane treatment of prisoners of war. Adjacent to where Aigner was kept was the compound holding Russian prisoners of war. They worked outside the camp dismantling damaged German equipment to salvage usable parts. On one occasion five of them escaped. There was much German consternation over that. There were headcounts continuously into the late night. The five could not be located. Two days later, the escapees were brought back to the camp. Two were shot to death. The other three were hung in a visible location with a placard on their chest saying, "I escaped. Here I am again." To the opposite side of Aigner's location was the medical experimentation camp with Mengele. Mengele selected twins of all ages for brutal experiments. Through the wire, Aigner could see those subjects deteriorating in health. While working in the kitchen, Aigner was able to observe the many transports bringing in new arrivals. It was almost as painful as seeing his mother and sister walk away from him. During his time in Auschwitz, he saw perhaps 200,000 or more people arrive. Each train brought approximately 4,000 people. There were three trains a day. Many times there was no selection. The capacity of Auschwitz was 109,000. When it was full, there was no selection. The people would be ushered immediately to the gas chambers and crematoria. It pained Aigner to see them going to their death. On one occasion, an inmate recognized a relative who had just arrived. They shouted at each other and rushed toward the electric wire to be closer to each other. They did not have a chance as the machine guns cut both of them down before they reached the wire. Aigner did not want to be a dead hero at 15 years old. He merely wanted to live one more day. It was hard seeing them going to their death. Aigner heard the explosion in one of the crematoria when the Sonderkommandos blew it up. It was about October 1944. On that day, the rattle of machine gun fire was constant. All 450 in the Sonderkommando group were gunned down. Those Sonderkommandos were heroes to Aigner. Their job had been to pull out the bodies from the gas chambers and feed them to the crematoria. Aigner was grateful he never had that job. That job sometime resulted in seeing loved ones who had been gassed. The assignment was for two months or so at which time that group of Sonderkommandos would be gassed and a new group brought in to replace them. While working in the kitchen, Aigner was told by a guard to shut up. The inmate did not hear the order. The guard took a pitchfork and threw it at Aigner. It went through his right foot. It disabled him. He was taken to a so-called hospital barrack where he was treated with bandages but no medications. He was there for eight to ten days when Dr. Epstein [Annotator's Note: Doctor Berthold Epstein] told him and a few others to report back to the barracks. Aigner protested that he was still not recovered. The doctor ordered him out of the hospital. Aigner returned to his barrack. That night, those patients left in the hospital were taken to the gas chamber. The Nazis did not like feeding those who could not help them. Aigner came to realize and appreciate the fact that Epstein had saved his life. After that, Aigner was very desperate to get out of Auschwitz. He knew that it would be fatal for him to go through the selection process again because he was still limping. He saved up portions of his bread ration. That was difficult because there was so little food allocated to the hungry prisoners. He used his bread to exchange clothes with a new inmate. The other inmate had a new flannel striped uniform and had been selected for a transport out of the camp. The flannel would be better for the winter weather. It was October and, up to that point, Aigner still had the same cotton striped clothing issued to him in July. The other prisoner had a preference to stay in Auschwitz because his father was there. The flannel outfit meant that Aigner could get on the transport to exit Auschwitz. In the next two week period before leaving the camp, Aigner continued to push the barrack's half barrel used by prisoners as a latrine. He pushed the barrel out of the barrack into a field. Since the Nazis were one crematorium short to dispose of the remains of those gassed, they had ordered prisoners to dig a pit that resembled a building foundation excavation. The dead bodies were placed in the pit. Layers of dead and then wood were stacked. The pyre was covered with fuel and ignited. Aigner was about 100 yards away and could smell the stench. Soon after, Aigner was loaded aboard a cattle car for transport. He was taken deep into Germany to Bayern, to a scenic town called Landsberg.

Leslie Aigner walked through the outskirts of Landsberg. A fellow prisoner pointed out the prison where Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] had been imprisoned and wrote Mein Kampf. Aigner was 15 years old and did not know about the book. He would learn that he was actually living what was prophesied. The inmates worked at Landsberg on a large project. It was the roof of a hanger-like building. The structure was ten foot thick and five stories high. It was 250 feet wide and almost 1,000 feet long. The workforce was composed of 30,000 people. It had been replenished many times. About 15,000 people had died on the project. Both men and women worked on the job. Aigner worked in a detail pushing rail cars with steel reinforcement beams on them. The workers were so weak that it took two men to do the work normally performed by one. One man stumbled and fell into the reinforcement rods. The Nazis would not stop the work to retrieve him. The man screamed as the concrete was poured on top of him. Aigner has continuously heard the man's scream in his head through the decades since the incident. Aigner counts his blessings that it was not him. He was taken back to Dachau which was in the area of the heavy work that was being performed. [Annotator's Note: Aigner delays his discussion as he reorients himself to the continuity of events. He reiterates that he was sent from Auschwitz to Landsberg.] After Landsberg, Aigner worked on the massive project for almost five months. The starvation diet and hard labor produced many casualties. In the first part of April 1945, the work was stopped. The Allied heavy artillery could be heard in the distance. The inmates prayed that they would survive until the arrival of the liberators. The prisoners were marched to the next encampment which was about five kilometers away. They marched through Kaufering. German people were throwing food to the marchers even though they were not allowed to do so. In the Kaufering camp, Aigner contracted typhus. He was in an A frame barrack with 50 people on each side. Kaufering Lager IV was a quarantine camp. He had high fever and little food or water. When he returned to his barrack, there was ample room. He walked outside and saw the rest of the former inhabitants stacked up like cordwood. He was blessed not to be one of them. The prisoners were marched to cattle cars, some of which were open. The prisoners were so weak that the Nazis did not worry that they would try to escape. The parallel tracks had a train with concentration camp prisoners on one set of tracks and retreating German equipment and munitions on the other set. The inmates hoped the Allied air force would not mistake them and attack. That was what happened. The two trains were going in the same direction and the aircraft hit them hard. Two men next to Aigner were hit in the head. The roof of the car was shot off by heavy machine gun fire. The guards fled and some of the people opened the doors to the cattle cars. The passengers stumbled down the embankment and tried to hide in the nearby woods. At night, they would dig up raw potatoes to sustain themselves. Freedom was brief. The guards came back with dogs and apprehended the escapees and ushered them back to the train. The bodies were never removed. The train made its way to Dachau by about 20 April [Annotator's Note: 20 April 1945]. The train was known as the "death train" because the dead aboard outnumbered the living.

Leslie Aigner and the other inmates were weak when they entered the camp [Annotator's Note: Dachau concentration camp]. On 29 April [Annotator's Note: 29 April 1945], the 7th Army liberated Dachau. [Annotator's Note: Aigner is visibly shaken with the joyous memory.] It was the happiest time of his life. The inmates cried and laughed at the same time. Liberation was beautiful and unbelievable. He got a can of corned beef. He ate it sparingly because he was not sure he would get more food. That was good fortune because those who ate heartily were sick or even died because their systems were not used to substantial food. Soon medical attention came and took care of the inmates in a real hospital. Aigner was in a field hospital for a month or so to recover. Some American doctors spoke between themselves and projected that the "human wretches" did not have more than 15 years to live. Aigner certainly outlived that projection by decades as he was nearly 84 years of age at the time of the interview. The recovered individuals wanted to return to their native home. Transports took people back to France, Holland, Poland, and other locations. Aigner went back to Czechoslovakia. He found no one in his hometown so he went back to Budapest and the factory where his sister had worked. A man told Aigner that his sister had been taken to a railway station. Aigner subsequently learned from his sister that she had been part of a group marching to the station when she jumped out of line and aboard a streetcar. The conductor saw her yellow star and ripped it off her clothes and got her aboard his car. [Annotator's Note: Aigner is emotional at the recounting of the incident.] His sister went into Budapest where she said she was from the country. She claimed to have had lost her papers in the bombings. She obtained a job working as a maid for a gentile family. Both she and Aigner's father survived the war. The patriarch had gone behind the Russian lines and hid until he could make his way back to Budapest in January 1945. That was at the time that Aigner was working in Landsberg on a big project. Beside the three members of Aigner's immediate family, only two cousins survived the war. The survival of those two in his immediate family was incredible. It helped Aigner keep his sanity after the war.

Leslie Aigner finished his apprenticeship and began working as a machinist after the war. He lived under a communist regime where there was no freedom of movement. In 1956, he met his future wife and married her shortly afterward. When the revolution began about the same time, he and his wife crossed over into Austria on Christmas Eve. They were accompanied by his father and step-mother. His father had remarried by then. They went through deep snow with sheets covering them. That camouflaged them from the overhead flares that the Russian guards were shooting into the air. They went to the American Consulate. Aigner's step-mother's son had gotten out of the DP [Annotator's Note: displaced person] camps and made his way to Portland. Aigner and the rest of the family could then apply for entry into the United States using his acceptance visa. Aigner settled in Portland and worked for Cascade Corporation and then Tetronics as a modelmaker. He has two wonderful children and four grandsons. He appreciates living the free man's life.

Upon arrival his at Auschwitz, Leslie Aigner saw Doctor Mengele [Annotator's Note: Doctor Josef Mengele chose who lived and died at Auschwitz through an initial "selection" process]. Aigner went through two selections by Mengele. Because of Aigner's husky nature, he always qualified for labor. Mengele was a very handsome man. He called himself a doctor, but the inmates called him "the angel of death." During arrival, Aigner was torn away from his mother. He did not know what they said to her, but she never looked back at him as she and her young daughter went in the opposite direction. Aigner was taken into the camp and his head was shaved. His clothes were taken, and he was issued blue and gray stripe uniforms. The chosen new arrivals were sent through a disinfection process. Nazis were good at dehumanizing individuals. The inmates felt threatened all the time. Their life did not seem to belong to them. Survival was a miracle. Somebody was looking after Aigner for him to do so. He was not stronger or smarter than others, but he did become a "camp savvy" person. He expressed no opposition to what was happening. He avoided looking into the eyes of the guards. They would beat a person with the butt of their gun for doing so. That was their guilt being manifest. Auschwitz life was so intense that some prisoners committed suicide by running to the electric wire. The dead would have to be pried from the wire the next day. Life was unimaginable and scary. It was a day by day existence. Guards in the watchtower would enjoy shooting the innocent on the basis that they were hunters. Aigner had no idea about Auschwitz prior to arriving there. He was ordered to write a letter to relatives back home but none were left. Instead, he wrote a letter to a gentile friend. The letter had to be written in German. A friend wrote it for him. He wrote to his supposed uncle. He said that he was with his friends and that he was alright. It was noticeable that he did not say that he was with his mother. That letter eventually made its way to his father in January 1945. Aigner has kept the letter through the years. The Nazis wanted to reassure the people back home. They were very good at deception. Since the letter was to a gentile friend, the recipient was not harmed.

Leslie Aigner was working on a six foot thick concrete roof when a man fell in the steel reinforcement structure while concrete was being poured. The Germans never stopped pouring the concrete to rescue the man. Aigner still can hear the man's screams all these decades later. Aigner was part of 114 survivors invited by the Washington, D.C. Holocaust Museum to attend the 50th commemoration at Dachau. Aigner had been in one of the 28 Dachau sub-camps that worked on that major project where the man died in the concrete. About 30,000 people had worked on the job. Aigner was hesitant to return to Germany in 1995. He had concerns about the manner in which the German people would react to Holocaust survivors. Although it was a hard trip, it served as a healing time. A large meeting was held with 4,000 civilian and military attendees. There was discussion about establishing a new dialogue between Germans and Jews. Germans showed courtesy and consideration toward Aigner. He saw it as a nice gesture that they knew who he was. [Annotator's Note: Aigner smiles in recognition.] While Aigner was an inmate at the Kaufering camp, he smuggled wood into his "home." [Annotator's Note: He laughs at himself for referring to the concentration camp as his "home."] The wood was used in a stove to keep the barrack somewhat warm. A pot of hot boiling water was kept on top of the stove. One morning when Aigner was slow to answer the wake up, a Nazi guard spilled the hot water into Aigner's shoe. It was the same foot that had been injured before. [Annotator's Note: Previously, another guard had speared his foot with a pitchfork when Aigner did not shut up when told to do so.] He managed to persevere through that injury. He was no stronger or smarter than others. He calls himself a lucky survivor rather than a hero. There were six million Jews killed with one and a half million of them being under the age of 15. In Europe, over five million other people were killed because of their intelligence, religion, or anti-Nazi views or beliefs. There were various colors of triangles representing the issue the Nazis had against the imprisoned individuals. The prisoners could tell the offenses of their fellow prisoners by the triangle they wore. The inmates felt like comrades under the circumstances. They watched out for each other. When liberation came, Aigner was too weak to stand. When he heard that the Americans had arrived, he felt joy. He cried and laughed at the same time. It was one of the best memories of his life. It was a beautiful day on 29 April [Annotator's Note: 29 April 1945]. To top that, Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] committed suicide the next day. It was if the dictator could not stand that Aigner was liberated. [Annotator's Note: Aigner laughs.] When the captives saw the Americans, they wanted to kiss and hug them. It was only the lice that covered them that prevented a physical show of appreciation. Later the former inmates would get DDT to rid themselves of the vermin. Aigner had a beautiful feeling when he was taken to a field hospital. He was going to be taken care of. He rested between white sheets and ate good food. He had been given corned beef upon liberation and ate it slowly unlike other hungry inmates who gobbled down the rich food and suffered from the shock to their digestive system. The Americans tried to help the survivors back to life. That was different from the Russians who merely opened the concentration camp gates and told the survivors to leave. If those liberated on the Eastern Front were in the same shape as Aigner was at liberation, they never would have made it home. The Americans nurtured the sick back to life. It was beautiful. Aigner is indebted to the "Greatest Generation" [Annotator's Note: a reference to Tom Brokow's book of the same name that recognized and commended the American men and women who participated in World War 2]. He owes his survival to them. Whenever he sees a veteran, he hugs them, shakes their hand and thanks them. Aigner remained at the tented field hospital for about a month after liberation. When he was strong enough to walk, transportation was provided for him to return home. Three members of his family survived the war. That helped Aigner keep his sanity. Not many Holocaust survivors can claim an equal number of their family made it through to liberation.

Although Leslie Aigner knows that war is wrong, it must be fought when there is injustice on the opposite side. People must appreciate each other and accept others the way they want to be accepted. Tolerance is important. Love each other because we are all humans. We have one God to pray to. We should accept each other no matter what color, ethnicity or differences we have. All our blood is red. We have to accept each other and learn to live together. To Aigner, talking about the Holocaust and liberation is always emotional even though he has done so for 25 years. He watched the Tom Hank's movie [Annotator's Note: the 4D feature at The National WWII Museum titled "Beyond All Boundaries"] about the liberation of Dachau. It made him emotional. It is a beautiful movie. Although Aigner does not see many movies or read many books, he did attend the showing of "Schindler’s List." Aigner testifies to others that the movie is very realistic. Not all camp brutality could be shown even though plenty was depicted. To Aigner, "every square of it is reality." That happened and more. For 15 years after the war, Aigner had bad dreams. Even after he married in 1956, he woke up screaming at night with cold sweats. He dreamt he was back in the camp. When his daughter was born in 1960, he took on a new direction. His son was born in 1964. He had a reason to go on and live his life fully. He is blessed that he can talk about his experiences and will continue to do so. Future generations have to learn about the potential for brutality. Examples persist today. There is Darfur and Kosovo. Fighting for ethnic differences is not right. Learn to accept one another. We can learn from different people to enhance life instead of fighting. Little nations fighting are not right. Killing in the name of God is not right. We all have to do our share to stop it. Aigner does his share by talking about what he has witnessed.