Leopold Polakiewicz

Leopold Polakiewicz was born in Warsaw in 1920, the son of a successful diamond merchant. He moved to Belgium with his parents and three brothers at the age of nine. The family lived in Antwerp, in what the local police described as ‘a large and richly furnished apartment’. Leopold was a medical student when Germany invaded Belgium on 10 May 1940. He fled to France and settled at Aulus-les-Bains, but was detained and interned at the Rivesaltes camp. He was deported from the Drancy assembly camp via Transport 33 to Auschwitz-Birkenau on 16 September 1942. Leopold Polakiewicz (21) was ordered off the train at Cosel and survived several labour camps. He was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau on 1 April 1944, where the number 178226 was tattooed on his arm. Leopold Polakiewicz ended up at Blechhammer, where he was employed in the hospital. He died in the course of a death march in February 1945.