Leo Heim grew up in the village of Sohidranka, Czechoslovakia. His father, Henry, owned a successful lumber business there and gave generously to his less fortunate neighbors. One Passover, he and his wife, Yhodet, organized the townspeople to bake their own matzoh in order to save them the expense of purchasing it. Although the Heims were wealthier than most of the people in town, Henry and Yhodet urged their five children to be modest and unostentatious, and, above all, to help others.
In March 1938, Hungary joined Germany in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, annexing several regions, including the area where the Heim family lived. Life quickly grew difficult for them. In 1942, Leo was drafted into slave labor. For the next three years he withstood sadistic cruelty, gnawing hunger, and exhausting toil. Yet for Leo, a man of abiding faith, what stood out during his three years of captivity were not the instances of wanton brutality, but the “miracles” that kept him alive. They included narrow escapes and fortuitous meetings. At one point, he jumped from a moving railroad car only to be caught by a group of Hungarian fascist youths. He was saved when a member of the gang recognized him from his hometown and allowed him to go free. As the end of the war neared, Leo escaped from a labor camp in Transylvania and hid in the swamps until Russian troops liberated him.
After liberation, Leo returned to Sohidranka. “All the Jewish homes were demolished, destroyed. The looting was indescribable. I walked into somebody’s house and I saw my mother’s candelabra. That brought back so much pain, when I recalled how she would stand and bless those candles. I just couldn’t bear it.” In 1949, Leo came to the United States, where he earned undergraduate and graduate degrees and was ordained as a rabbi. While he was studying in Chicago, he ran into Freida (Fern) Rothstein, whom he had met in Czechoslovakia. The couple married and settled in Miami, where Leo’s twin sister, Olga, lived. Leo and Fern had three children. Rabbinical work took the Heims from Miami to El Paso, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and Corpus Christi. In 1990, Leo and Fern, who was gravely ill, came to Houston for medical treatment. After Fern’s death in 1994, Leo delved into community work to ease his pain, serving as the chaplain of Seven Acres Geriatric Center, visiting with and counseling patients at M.D. Anderson Hospital, and working at Congregation Beth Yeshurun.
Parents:
Henry Heim, d. in Holocaust
Yhodet (Ida) Grunwald Hein, d. in Holocaust
Siblings:
Rose, d. Auschwitz
Joseph, d. in Holocaust
Malka, d. 1945
Olga, survived