Leopold Engleitner

Leopold Engleitner (23 July 1905 – 21 April 2013) was an Austrian conscientious objector, as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, and a concentration camp survivor who spoke publicly and with students about his experiences. He was the subject of the documentary Unbroken Will. Before his death, Engleitner was the world's oldest known male concentration camp survivor (held in Buchenwald, Niederhagen and Ravensbrück), and the oldest male Austrian. Imprisonment Born in Aigen-Voglhub, Austria, Engleiter grew up in the imperial city of Bad Ischl. He studied the Bible intensively in the 1930s and was baptised as a Jehovah's Witness in 1932. In the period up to World War II he faced religious intolerance, even persecution, from his immediate neighbourhood and the Austrian authorities, first by the fascist regime of Dollfuss and then under Nazi Germany. Spring 1934: 48 hours in Bad Ischl prison Winter 1934/35: 48 hours in Bad Ischl prison 5 January 1936 – 30 March 1936: imprisonment in St. Gilgen and Salzburg 19 September 1937 – 14 October 1937: detained in Bad Aussee prison When Adolf Hitler occupied Austria in 1938, Leopold Engleitner's religion, ideologies and conscientious objection to serving in the Army brought him into conflict with the Nazis.