Survived….At Last I Speak
Leon Malmed
Historical Biography
is Leon Malmed’s true story of his and his sister Rachel’s escape
from the Holocaust in Occupied France. When their father and mother
were arrested in 1942, their courageous and heroic French neighbors
volunteered to watch their children until they returned. Leon’s
parents were taken first to Drancy, then to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and
they never returned. Meanwhile their downstairs neighbors, Henri and
Suzanne Ribouleau, gave the children a home and family and sheltered
them through subsequent roundups, threats, air raids, and the war’s
privations. The courage, sympathy, and dedication of the Ribouleaus
and others stand in strong contrast to the collaborations and moral
weakness of many of the French authorities. Leon and Rachel each came
to America after the war, but always kept their strongest ties to
“Papa Henri and Maman Suzanne,” who were honored as “Righteous
Among the Nations” by Yad Vashem in 1977. Leon bares his soul in
this narrative of love and courage, set against a backdrop of
tragedy, fear, injustice, prejudice, and the greatest moral outrage
of the modern era. It is a story of goodness triumphing once more
over evil.
Malmed was born in France on October 4th, 1937.
is a Holocaust Survivor.
immigrated to the U.S, in 1964. He lived 18 years in New York.
was a resident of the San Francisco Bay area for 30 years. He and his
wife
now live full time in South Lake Tahoe.
graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Paris. He
is a graduate of the Finance Senior Executive program at UCLA and the
Executive Institute for Management of High Technology Companies at
Stanford Business School.
worked in the High Tech industry in Silicon Valley where he held
executive positions for over 30 years. He served on Hi-Tech companies
Board of Directors and is currently on the Board of the Lake Tahoe
Community College Foundation.
60 years of total silence about his childhood during the Holocaust
and aftermath, Leon decided to publish his memoir. He is the author
of “We Survived…At Last I Speak” available in English, French
and Spanish.
books are available at Amazon.com, Lulu.com, Kindle.com and
Audible.com.
speaks about the Holocaust in Schools, Colleges, Universities,
Churches, Synagogues, Book clubs and Men and women’s clubs in the
US, in Europe and South America. He has been interviewed on TV and
radio.
writing books, he loves riding bikes, skiing, sailing and golfing.
participated last year in the Dancing with the Tahoe Stars and won
one of the two trophies.
In 1942 Leon Malmed lived in France with his parents and older sister. Then the French police knocked on the door to their apartment and his whole world turned upside down. His parents were taken away to a concentration camp and never returned. They asked their Catholic neighbors to look after Leon and his sister and they took the kids under their wings.
Henri and Suzanne Ribouleu raised the kids along with their own child, even paying the rent on Leon’s parent’s apartment for them. But things were not easy. The Nazi’s and police came back several times looking for Leon and his sister and it is heartbreaking to read what he went through just to stay alive. But these things helped shape Leon into the person he is today and helped him when he moved to America to become successful.
The Holocaust is a dark stain on human history. Reading about the horrible things that happened, what people did to survive, and to understand the loss of human life is a hard pill to swallow. It would be easy to sick out heads in the sand and pretend it didn’t happen. But I am a firm believer that those that do not study history are doomed to repeat it.
This is a touching and at times difficult to read biography but it is one that I recommend reading. It is sad what Leon went through but it also made the man he is today. This is a book that I believe everyone needs to read, just to honor those that survived and those that were lost.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. I voluntarily chose to read and post an honest review.
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