Leon Weliczker Wells notebooks

Copyright Holder: Leon W. Wells The Leon Weliczker Wells notebooks consists of fourteen volumes and two pages written by Wells during his second period of imprisonment in the Janowska concentration camp and while in hiding in the basement of the Kalwinski family following his escape. Wells describes the work of Sonderkommando 1005 in the Janowska camp, his escape, and his hiding place on the Kalwinski family’s farm. These notebooks were widely published as "The Janowska Road" and "The Death Brigade." Leon Weliczker Wells (1925-2009) was born Leon Weliczker in Stojanów, Poland (now Stojaniw, Ukraine) and moved with his family to Lemberg (Lviv) in 1936. He was imprisoned in the Janowska concentration camp in 1942, escaped after three months, confined to the Lwów ghetto, and in June 1943 assigned to a Sonderkommando 1005 unit at the Janowska concentration camp. He escaped during the November 19, 1943 Sonderkommando uprising and hid for four months with sixteen other Jews in a cellar under a barn at the home of the Kalwinski family. He was liberated in the spring of 1944 by the Red Army. Both of his parents (Abraham and Chana) and all six of his siblings (Elka, Rachel, Judit, Bina, Aaron, and Jakob) were killed in the Holocaust. Weliczker studied engineering, immigrated to the United States in 1949, and changed his last name to Wells. He was interviewed for the Nuremberg Trial of the Major War Criminals and served as a witness at the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem.