In honor of this solemn day, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I wanted to share this eulogy I had the privilege of writing for a remarkable person, engineer, and educator who was a survivor of the Holocaust. Knowing him and being tasked with writing these words was one of the great honors of my life.
The Book of (Lou) Leviticus
Lou was one of a kind. I take pride in knowing that he liked me… despite my being a rabbi. He was not a big fan of religion. He didn’t much need the books of Torah. One might say his very life was its own book of Torah. Quite appropriate for a man named Leviticus. Still, Lou’s story was not at all like his namesake, which focuses on laws of purity and holiness. Lou’s life, the Book of Lou, if you will, was filled with action. It is an amazing story, that has been told and retold, and like the Torah, needs to be retold and retold forever. Of the Torah, our Jewish sages teach, we turn and turn our way through it, reading it over and over again, for everything can be discovered in it. The same can be said of the Book of Lou. The more we examine the life and Legacy of Lou, we discover some of most important lessons that mankind can learn. We learn about the terrible consequences of senseless hatred. We learn the resiliency of the human spirit. We learn the challenges and hard choices of survival. We learn that life takes us on a rollercoaster of ups and downs, from tragedy to triumphs to tragedy and back again. We learn the importance of education and culture. And we learn the duty to share love and learning with the world. The Book of Lou Leviticus teaches us all these things and more. All we have to do is turn it, and turn it, examining it in order to remember Lou, his life, his lessons, his legacy.
As we study the book of Lou, it is best to start with, pardon the expression, Lou’s Genesis. He was born July 4, 1931, in the city of Aalten, a farming town in the Netherlands. He was the only child of parents Max and Sera Leviticus, and of his own admission, he was spoiled rotten. His earliest years were not easy, as the economic depression made it hard for Max to find work. Lou lived with his mother in her parents’ home in the country while his father bounced from job to job in Amsterdam trying to support his family. When at last his father found a steady job, the family moved to the city in Amsterdam where they lived a very comfortable middle-class life.
Before the war came to the Netherlands, Lou recalled a happy childhood. An only child, he never wanted for anything, toys, love, and attention. He developed a special closeness with his paternal grandmother Francine who, though she lived far away in the Hague, managed to spoil him. In her spoiling, however, she helped to plant the seeds for some of Lou’s passions which he would embrace throughout his life. A gift of a high-powered radio allowed him to hear programming from all across Europe, introducing him to other cultures and other languages which he could absorb. Grandma Francine also exposed him to culture and literature, taking young Lou to the opera, and the art museum always guiding him in appreciating the skill and technique of the masters.
Lou also developed an early attachment to animals, of every kind, and of every size. He had a knack with dogs. When Lou was a toddler, he had an encounter with a cousin’s dog who was known to have an aggressive temper. This dog might have torn the hand off of any ordinary person, but Lou was no ordinary person. This dog walked right up to young Lou and licked his hand and sat there to receive a good scratching. Lou’s affection was not reserved only for housepets. He also had a way with horses who trusted him immediately, and he became an adept trainer of hedgehogs which he would catch, feed and train as an amusement while in hiding in the Dutch countryside. His fascination with hedgehogs would remain even to Lou’s last days. Rose said, even as she was sorting through her husband’s computer files, a graphic of a hedgehog popped up on the screen to say Hello.
This connection to the animal kingdom provides a glimpse into Lou’s character. He was sensitive and caring. He was also fearless and persistent. He wrote in his book about regular visits to the local zoo where he was allowed into the primate cages to feed and interact with the beasts. One day, an orangutan got too excited, latched on to Lou’s hand and rolled around the enclosure like a bowling ball. Lou’s shoulder was separated in the incident, but he was proud of it, as, his arm in a sling, he would brag to the neighborhood kids. He remained undeterred from his love animals. Over the course of his life, he would write, that his connection to animals helped him cope with the very difficult things he had endured in life. He remarked that all you had to do was love them, and they would love you back. Furthermore, no animal had ever treated him badly. Lou would discover the hard way that the same could not be said of humans.
This brings us to the second part of Lou’s life. We go from Lou’s Genesis, to Lou’s Exodus.
War came to the Netherlands when Lou was nine years old. His happy childhood, like so many lives in Europe and around the world, was interrupted. His father was called to Reserve service in the Dutch army. Lou was proud that his father fought for their country, and he loved to be seen walking around town with his uniformed father, the hero. As we know, the German war machine greatly overmatched the Dutch defenses who capitulated after only a few days. Lou remembered his father’s return from battle, and how he just sat in his chair and cried. The tears were for the nation, which was lost, and also for everything else which he knew was soon to be lost along with it.
Like all Jews living under Nazi occupation, Lou was forced to wear a yellow star. Other freedoms were soon taken away as well. His father lost his job as Jewish people were no longer allowed to be employed in non-Jewish companies. They were not allowed to use public transportation and were only permitted to go outside at certain times of day. Before long, Lou had to start attending a school only for Jewish children. His beloved dog Julie was taken away because a neighbor complained that a Jew should own a dog. A neighbor, a member of the Nazi party even confiscated Lou’s bicycle and then gifted it to his own child.
All of these events made Lou’s blood boil. And he was angered not only at the injustice but was also furious at his feeling of utter helplessness. And if it were only material possessions, it might have been bearable. But he and his Jewish friends were subject to random attacks on the street. On multiple occasions he was beat up, even had his head smashed through a window, all while passersby ignored or even reveled in his plight. At his young age, Lou barely understood what it meant to be Jewish. He rarely went to synagogue and did not care for Hebrew school at all. He did not understand why parentage had made him a target nor could he comprehend what was different about Jews that they should be subjected to that treatment.
Lou’s family eventually went into hiding. With the support from the Dutch resistance, they went to the countryside where they took shelter on a farm. When that welcome wore out, they were shuffled to another safe house, a second-floor apartment outside of Amsterdam. It provided a temporary refuge. In hiding Lou occupied himself with games, frequently beating his father in chess, though in hindsight, he was fairly sure Dad was letting him win. But he also read every book he could find in that apartment. He was too young to understand a lot of what he read, but he would read and read again just to pass the time. Amazing that even under terrible duress, he showed signs of a budding academic with an insatiable thirst for knowledge.
If Lou’s world had been shaken by events until that point, it was shattered one grey afternoon in November 1942. The family heard heavy footsteps climbing toward their apartment. A man shouted, “Police, stay where you are.” In a flash, Lou opened the shutters on a back-room window of the apartment and jumped through it. Somehow landing uninjured, Lou looked up to see his father wildly shooing him away just before he closed the shutters. By the slimmest of margins, this act bought Lou just enough time to escape.
And he ran. This young boy, whose biggest fear before the war was having his tonsils removed, whose greatest pain had come from rolling around in an orangutan cage, and whose worst encounter with cruelty had been watching a farmer slaughter a duck, he now ran for his life. By age 11, he had witnessed unimaginable cruelty, had been subjected to terrible pain, and now feared for his life. Worse yet, he was on his own. His father closing the window was the last time he would see his parents. Both died at Auschwitz less than two months after their capture.
Lou ran through the night making narrow escapes until, by instinct, following the sound of familiar church bells, he found the home of Joop Van der Pol who had helped his family go into hiding. Lou was taken back to a familiar farm in the countryside but later was taken by Karel Brouwer to the Milestone house where he was taken in like a member of the family. Under Brouwer’s care, in the refuge of the Dutch Resistance, Lou found safe haven and care which, despite several close calls, and more than one frantic relocation, helped him to survive the war. He was always deeply grateful for the kindness of so many people who risked their own lives to protect him and other Jews.
Following the war, Lou spent several years in an orphanage before his Exodus resulted, quite appropriately with his arrival in the Promised Land. This was the beginning of Lou Leviticus, the emergence of the confident, courageous, brilliant man we all knew. He immigrated to the budding Jewish state in Israel. There he built a new life. He studied engineering at the Technion Institute and worked on a kibbutz where he was a skilled tractor mechanic. His first journey to the United States brought him to South Bend, Indiana where he earned his PhD at Purdue University. Lou returned Israel where he worked and raised a family. He also served in Israeli army, being called into active duty for multiple defenses of the homeland notably in 1967 and in 1973. Sadly, during the 1973 war, the most harrowing in Israel’s history, Lou’s son Eitan was one of the many casualties suffered by the Jewish state. The grief of losing a son would always remain with Lou who had witnessed the horror of war from every possible angle. Lou managed to move on, mostly because he had no other choice.
In 1975, Lou accepted a position at the University of Nebraska as professor of agricultural engineering. This, we could call the beginning Lou’s Numbers, for here he would flourish, as director of the Nebraska Tractor Test Labratory. Among his many accomplishments was working with NASA on the development of the moon rover which bears his name among the researchers who made it possible. There is something comforting in knowing that whenever we miss Lou, we can look to the moon and know that his name is engraved on it. Lou finished his career, having advanced the technology allowing farmers to increase their yields and helping to feed the world. But even after his retirement in 1998, he would never quit working as he remained the curator of the Larsen tractor museum on the UNL campus.
Lou’s numbers were not limited to his professional life. No one thing or endeavor could begin to define the man he was. Perhaps his proudest personal achievement was marrying Rose, whom he had known for years. When both found themselves single at the same time, Lou convinced her to move across the ocean to America where they were married in 1982. He developed strong relationships with Rose’s children, treating them like his own. He was also close with his 5 grandchildren and one great granddaughter. One of his greatest joys was showing off the tractor museum to the grandkids who were mesmerized by his enthusiasm and knowledge.
Lou’s family remembers his sense of humor. Often self-effacing, he was also known to tease a little. That might have been the true sign of his affection for you, if he could joke with you and get you to laugh with him. Rose recalls that she was drawn to Lou for his intellect and his decisiveness. He taught her about the stars, modern art, and music appreciation. He especially loved Jazz. It was not uncommon for Lou, on a whim, to pop into a jazz club, even on the way back from an airport run to pick up a visitor. He taught himself to lay piano and guitar and played in a jazz band for a number of years. It seemed that whatever he set his mind to doing, he could not only succeed, but excel. I am told, just weeks before his death, he had actually become a champion at bowling, on the Wii video game system at the Grand Lodge at the Preserve.
Lou’s Numbers, his personal and professional achievements are too many to be counted. Also defying enumeration is his contribution to the world with the fifth book of his Torah– Lou’s Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is a Greek word meaning repetition. It was through repeating his story, time and again that most people came to know Lou. It was relatively late in life that he began to publicly share his story, partially out of humility wondering what made him so special, but also because he had never come to terms with all he had seen and done. But after recording testimony for Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation in 1990, he decided to keep telling the story, accepting speaking engagements all over Nebraska. Thus, he profoundly affected generations of Nebraskans by bearing witness to the atrocities of the Holocaust and sharing the lessons of where hate and resentment can lead. He also shared a message of hope, that no matter how bad things seemed, there was always a reason to live and there was always a way out.
Lou quickly discovered that sharing his story was also personally rewarding. He became involved with the Institute for Holocaust Education in Omaha and translated a Dutch play about the Holocaust into English. He took a starring role into which he poured his soul and enjoyed taking it on a tour. These educational activities became emotional therapy for Lou. He eventually decided to put everything he could recall into a book, “Tales from the Milestone” which he saw as his crowning achievement. It is very much Lou, frank, honest, and no holds barred, and needs to be read.
Lou would probably say quite humbly that it was just his story, while it shares a truth about human nature which we must never forget. Lou was always amazed at how much he affected his listeners and readers who embraced him like an old friend. He had a knack for capturing people’s hearts and minds. Rose always stood in awe, as her husband was treated like a celebrity with teenagers snapping selfies with a man who had helped to change their lives.
It is both fitting and tragic that he was scheduled to speak at the Lincoln Alternative school the same week he had the stroke. Even though walking had become burdensome as his body aged faster than his mind, he remained committed to sharing his story, even to the end. Tragically, this presentation never happened. Those students will have to learn the lessons another way. The Deuteronomy by Lou Leviticus has come to an end. Now it is up to us who knew him to pick up the mantle of his Torah and to keep the repetitions going. It is up to us to keep turning the scrolls, to tell it and retell and share it with the world so that we can never forget.
When we talk about Torah, it is about much more than religious doctrine. The ever-important Hebrew word means teaching. The concept of Torah is bigger. It refers to teaching of eternal truths that take an eternity to study and learn. Such was the life and Torah of Lou Leviticus. In all his books and chapters, from his Genesis in the NEtherlands, to his Exodus escaping death, to re-inventing himself to become a grown Leviticus, to his Numbers of achievements, to his Deuteronomy inspiring people to make the best of themselves and to change the world, Lou’s Torah is one which, after 84 years is done being written, it is a story that will live on in the hearts and minds of everyone who knew him.
Zichrono Livracha, May the Memory of Lou Leviticus always be for an eternal blessing.
Craig Lewis - A View From Mizpah 