Léon

Léon Lewkowicz

Léon Lewkowicz was born in 1930 in Łódź, Poland. A miracle child, he was born after years of waiting, when his mother was already over 40.

At 10, he was imprisoned in the Łódź Ghetto. He slept hidden inside a suitcase, under a bed. At 14, he was deported to Birkenau. He lied about his age to escape the gas chamber. On October 7, 1944, during the Sonderkommando revolt, he miraculously survived a gas chamber. “I experienced hell while I was still alive.”

After the war, he weighed just 30 kilos. He decided to become strong enough so that no one would ever call him a “dirty Jew” again. In 1955, he became French weightlifting champion.

In 2024, at the age of 94, he carried the Olympic flame through the streets of Paris.