• Leopold Engleitner
• LADDER in the LIONS’ DEN: International film awards
• Russian and English translation of TAKING THE STAND
• Revised English version of UNBROKEN WILL
• USA lecture tour TAKING THE STAND in October 2015

Leopold Engleitner

As most of the friends have surely heard, Leopold Engleitner peacefully passed away on April 21, 2013 at the age of 107. The reactions from the whole world clearly showed once again how much Leopold was appreciated for his principled way of living, as well as for his activity as a contemporary witness against forgetting the Nazi past. I received 1,000 empathetic letters from all over the world. In addition, over 1,200 media reports in over 120 countries on all continents appeared–among them The New York Times, Washington Post, Montreal Gazette, Reuters China, Reuters Brasil, India News, Africa News, The Times in London, etc.–reaching a total of 1 billion people. I would like to thank the many friends who comforted me with words of consolation during this time and ask for understanding that after the loss of my best friend – with whom I shared an extraordinary 19-year friendship – I am just now sending out a newsletter again. 

 
LADDER in the LIONS’ DEN: International film awards

The new documentary film about L.E., LADDER in the LIONS’ DEN, received 11 awards and accolades in the last three years at film festivals in the USA and Europe (see www.facebook.com/LeopoldEngleitner). These included two nominations at the “Long Island International Film Expo 2014” in New York, which is ranked among the Top 25 Film Festivals of the World. The film has already been screened at two US film festivals in Wisconsin and New York in 2015, and will be shown again in the course of the planned TAKING THE STAND USA lecture tour (see below).

 
Russian and English translation of TAKING THE STAND

After the Holocaust interview project IM ZEUGENSTAND appeared in German in 2012, the book could meanwhile be published in Russian and English (TAKING THE STAND). The DVD has likewise been translated into English. Special thanks go out to the translation teams and copy editors, as well as all those involved in creating the DVD, for their extraordinary efforts in making this project, the only one of its kind in the world now available to people who speak English and Russian.

Information about all nine participating survivors (Ernst Blajs, Adolf Burger, Renée Firestone, Frieda Horvath, Josef Jakubowicz, Hermine Liska, Simone Liebster, Richard Rudolph, and L.E. – who gave his last lengthy interview for the project) and about the book and DVD (also available in English as an eBook and digital download) can be found on the new website: www.TakingTheStand.net 

 Revised English version of UNBROKEN WILL

The new English-language edition of Engleitner’s biography, UNBROKEN WILL, has appeared in the US as a hardcover, a paperback, as well as an eBook. Information about the book and film, which is now also available as a digital download, can be found at www.unbrokenwill.com.   

 
USA lecture tour TAKING THE STAND in October 2015
I am very pleased that the book and DVD project has attracted such positive interest in scholarly circles in the US.
Due to invitations to hold lectures as elite universities such as Harvard and Stanford (which has planned an event for more than 400 students), as well as the well-known Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Library (which has arranged a morning event for up to 700 Middle and High school students and an evening screening of LADDER in the LIONS’ DEN), I have decided to travel to America in October 2015. At the Ronald Reagan Library have three weeks ahead already more than 500 students signed up, and it even intends to broadcast the event to classrooms across the country through a live webcast at www.reaganfoundation.org .

Hermine Liska has gracefully agreed to accompany me during the whole tour as a witness to history and will tell her impressive story of how she was persecuted by the Nazis as a child. I am very pleased that Auschwitz survivor and Holocaust teacher Renée Firestone, from Los Angeles, will be additionally taking part in the lectures in California.

The following events will take us to Boston, San Francisco and Los Angeles:
East Coast
Oct. 6, 2015 University of Connecticut
Oct. 7, 2015 Boston College
Oct. 8, 2015 Harvard University
West Coast:
Oct. 13, 2015 Stanford University
Oct. 16, 2015 Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Library (in the morning: an event for schools)
Oct. 16, 2015 Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Library (in the evening: screening of the film LADDER in the LIONS' DEN open to the public)
Oct. 18, 2015 Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust
Oct. 20, 2015 Pepperdine University in Malibu

Detailed information about these events can be found at www.TakingTheStand.net and the enclosed flyer, and can be gladly passed on to interested people. Up-to-date reports about the tour and the events will be posted on Facebook www.facebook.com/bernhard.rammerstorfer and Twitter https://twitter.com/brammerstorfer.

I would be very happy to meet our friends again at these events. And I would especially like to thank all those who are supporting us and whose contributions are making this lecture tour possible.

Warm regards from Austria,

Bernhard Rammerstorfer