Leon Bass (January 23, 1925 – March 28, 2015) was an educator from Philadelphia. He is noted as an African-American soldier in World War II who witnessed the Buchenwald concentration camp.

Leon Bass was a nineteen-year-old African-American sergeant serving in a segregated army unit when he encountered the “walking dead” of Buchenwald. Like many others, he tried to repress his memories of the horrors that he saw there and “never talked about it all.”

Leon Bass was just 19 years old, serving in the US Army, when he became an eyewitness to the staggering scale of these atrocities. As a member of the 183rd Engineer Combat Battalion, Bass helped provide support after Allied troops liberated the Buchenwald concentration camp.

In this interview, Leon describes his first experiences with the realities of war and death. He reflects upon his decision to join the US Army and fight for his country, even though he experienced discrimination and racism in the United States.

2019年2月20日 · Leon Bass was an African-American soldier in World War II who helped liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp. He later became an educator, civil rights activist and proponent of black-Jewish unity.

2015年3月31日 · Leon Bass, an educator and witness to the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp, passed away at the age of 90 on Saturday in Newtown, PA. With his death we are reminded that someday soon there will be no survivors, liberators, and witnesses of the Holocaust alive to tell their stories.

2015年4月1日 · This week, the world lost a true hero. Dr. Leon Bass, who turned his personal and life-altering experiences with racism and anti-Semitism into opportunities to educate, inspire action in others and bear, in word, deed and character, the mandate of “Never Again,” died on Saturday, March 28 th at the age of 90. ADL joins the world in mourning ...

Sometime in April 1945, a young African American GI, Leon Bass, entered the notorious Buchenwald concentration camp and saw piles of dead bodies and prisoners so weakened that large numbers of them would die in the days and weeks following the liberation.

After the war, Leon went on to receive his doctorate, teach, and speak about the Holocaust and racism. In this interview, Leon describes what he knew about Nazi concentration camps and the Holocaust during and after World War II.

Leon’s unique perspective as both a victim of oppression and a witness to oppression engaged wider audiences and spoke to the universality of bigotry and intolerance. A beloved activist and educator, he died at age 90 in 2015.