Λέων Μπέτσικας / Leon Betsikas 1917 - 1945 Edit
Born 3.3.1917 in Chania
Died 24.4.1945 in Ebensee
Biography
Leon Betsikas was born on 3 March 1917 in Hania and he lived with his parents (Raphael and Perla) and his four sisters (Hrysoula, Anna, Sterina und Sara) near the Etz Hayyim Synagogue in the old town of Hania. Even before the whole Jewish community of Hania was arrested and deported in June 1944, the Betsikas family and their relatives, the Trevezas family, saved themselves to Athens.
Leon was arrested because he was Jewish and was deported to Auschwitz Concentration Camp, from where he was brought to Mauthausen on 25 January 1945. The circumstances of his initial arrest, i.e. where and when he was arrested, still require further research. Leon Betsikas died on 24 April 1945 in Ebensee, a subcamp of Mauthausen, less than two weeks before the liberation by US-American troops.
Among his surviving family members his death is remembered as having been caused by him eating a large amount of food which his starved stomach could not digest – a cause of death for numerous concentration camp inmates at the time of liberation. While the files of Mauthausen concentration camp list Leon Betsikas’ date of death before the liberation, it is rather unlikely that he received that much food at that time and therefore the circumstances of his death might have to be further investigated.
Katerina Anagnostaki / Daniel Jordan
Katerina Anagnostaki is doctoral candidate of history at the University of Crete and is working on a research project about the Jewish community of Hania. In cooperation with the Etz Hayyim Synagogue in Hania, Katerina Anagnostaki and the Gedenkdienst (Austrian Holocaust Memorial Service) volunteer Daniel Jordan reconstructed the biography of Leon Betsikas based on information of his family members and data of the former concentration camp Mauthausen.
Files
Send information about this person...
Add further information about this person...
