Harry Lenga was born in 1919 to a family of Chassidic Jews in Kozhnitz, Poland, where his father taught him and his brothers the watchmaking trade that would save their lives during the war. Harry was working in Warsaw when the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, and escaped from the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941 to reunite with his family in the Kozhnitz Ghetto. The night before the Germans murdered its entire Jewish population—including his remaining family members—Harry and two of his brothers escaped Kozhnitz to a nearby Polish-run labor camp. From there, the three brothers were transported between 1942 and 1945 to the camps in Wolanow, Starachowice, and Auschwitz, and then to the Austrian concentration camps of Mauthausen, Melk, and Ebensee. All three brothers were liberated by the U.S. Army on May 6, 1945. In 1949, Harry immigrated to St. Louis, Missouri, where he married, had three sons, and went on to have grandchildren. He continued working as a watchmaker for nearly thirty years before retiring and later moving with his wife to Israel. Harry Lenga died on January 2, 2000 at the age of eighty.
Scott Lenga is the son of Harry Lenga. A native of St. Louis, Missouri, he holds a BA in economics from UC Berkeley and a law degree from UCLA. He and his wife live in Israel, where they raised three daughters who grew up listening to stories about the grandfather they never really knew. In addition to writing and speaking about his family’s experiences during and after World War II, he serves as a corporate and intellectual property lawyer for technology companies. Visit him online at ScottLenga.com.
