Only now, many years later, have I come to understand the darkness of the events through which Leon lived before this time, to emerge with a dignity intact, with warmth and a smile. He was a generous, passionate man, with a fiery temper that sometimes burst forth unexpectedly and brutally, a lifelong socialist who admired the French prime minister Léon Blum and loved soccer, an observant Jew for whom religion was a private matter not to be imposed on others. He was uninterested in the material world and didn’t want to be a burden on anybody. Three things mattered to him: family, food, and
...more
