December 30, 2025 
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Leo was born in Łódź, where he lived with his father Mordka, his mother Marja Cwilich, four brothers, and two sisters. His father supported the family as a seller and trader, and like many Jewish families in prewar Poland, their life was rooted in hard work, family, and tradition.
That world was shattered in 1939, when Nazi Germany occupied Poland. Between 1940 and 1941, Leo and his brother Pajsech—possibly alongside their mother—were forced into the Łódź Ghetto. For years, Leo endured the ghetto’s brutal deprivation, hunger, and despair.
In 1944, Leo and Pajsech were deported to Auschwitz. Leo was issued a prisoner’s uniform and number, though he was never tattooed—he remained there for only ten days before being transported onward. In that short span of time, Leo witnessed the murder of his brother Pajsech, a loss that would mark him for the rest of his life.
Leo was transferred to Kaufering Lager IV, a subcamp of Dachau. There, he was imprisoned under horrific conditions until liberation by the U.S. Army on May 1, 1945. Of his immediate family, only his sister Malka survived the Holocaust.
After liberation, Leo spent time in the Feldafing Displaced Persons Camp, one of the first DP camps established for Holocaust survivors. In 1949, he immigrated to the United States, arriving in New York aboard the USAT General C. C. Ballou on November 30. Soon after, he settled in Cincinnati, determined to rebuild a life from unimaginable loss.
Leo applied for U.S. citizenship in 1950 and completed the process in 1954. He chose the name Leo C. Wilich, keeping the “C” as a living tribute to his family. He worked for many years as a furrier at Lowenthal’s Furs of Cincinnati, eventually retiring after a lifetime of quiet perseverance.
Leo never turned away from his past. He preserved his concentration camp uniform—an object designed to erase identity—and transformed it into something profoundly human. He cared for it meticulously, because to him it was not only a symbol of suffering, but of survival.
On difficult days, Leo would take the uniform from his closet, put it on, and look at himself in the mirror. In that reflection, he reminded himself that he had already endured the worst days imaginable: the ghetto, Auschwitz, Dachau. Whatever challenges he faced in the present, he knew he had the strength to overcome them.
As his cousin Hannah Goldman wrote,
“Leo understood the freedom he found in the U.S. could never be disengaged from its hard-won roots in his suffering.”
Leo carried that understanding into a life of service. He was a founding member of Jewish Survivors from Nazism, which later became the Holocaust and Humanity Center. He was deeply active in the Jewish community and volunteered his time at the Jewish Hospital, giving back to the society that allowed him to begin again.
Leo’s life stands as testimony—not only to what was lost, but to what can be rebuilt. Through memory, resilience, and purpose, he transformed suffering into meaning and ensured that his story, and the stories of those who did not survive, would never be forgotten.
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