The Boy on the Wooden Box, Leon Leyson. This is a memoir written by a man that survived the Holocaust due to Oskar Schindler, the very man renowned for saving hundreds of Jews during WWII. Leon and his family moved from rural Narewka, Poland to the bigger city of Krakow when his father got a new job. When the Nazis conquered Poland, Leon, his parents, three brothers and sister were taken away by train to live in the ghetto behind the barbed wire fence. From there, they were transported to work camps where their hope was tested over and over. Beatings, starvation, sickness, fatigue and separation were a constant. Gas chambers, massacres, massive graves were all around. Sunken eyes, caved in bodies, hollow souls. Leon remembers the day his older brother Tsalig was taken away by train and never seen again.

Leon's father, good with locks, happened to impress a Nazi soldier who allowed him to stay in his employ. It was none other than Schindler himself.  Despite the horror of the camps, the family had an angel looking out for them. Little did they realize how much Schindler himself was going out on a limb to protect his Jewish employees.

When the allies came to Poland, capturing the German soldiers and releasing the Jews, Leon, his parents, one brother and his sister lived to tell their stories. Leon followed his parents to Los Angeles where he closed himself off from his past and made a new life. His experiences remained silent, until others encouraged him to tell the world his story. Here it is. Read it. Be moved. Never forget.