Leo Bretholz
Austrian writer, Holocaust survivor
Leo Bretholz (March 6, 1921 – March 8, 2014) was a Holocaust survivor who, in 1942, escaped from a train heading for Auschwitz. He has also written a book on his experiences, titled Leap into Darkness.
He escaped seven times during the Holocaust.
Life
Leo Bretholz was born in Vienna, Austria, on March 6, 1921. His father, Max Bretholz, was a Polish immigrant who worked as a tailor and died in 1930. His Mother, Dora (Fischmann) Bretholz, also Polish, was born in 1891 and worked as a seamstress. He had two younger sisters, Henny and Edith (Ditta).
After the Anschluss in March 1938, many of his relatives were arrested. At his mother's insistence, Bretholz fled on a train to Trier, Germany, where he was met by a smuggler. He swam across the Sauer River into Luxembourg, where he spent five nights in a Franciscan monastery.
The public source identifies “Leo Bretholz” as austrian writer, Holocaust survivor. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bretholz, Austrian and writer.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6523579. VIAF identifies the subject as 97699992. The Library of Congress control number is n98039426. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1921, 2014, 1942 and 1930.
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This entry incorporates text from “Leo Bretholz” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.