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Havana, 1939

JL;DR SUMMARY David Lehman's article recounts his uncle Leo Liebe's journey as a Jewish refugee during WWII. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

HolocaustOrthodox JudaismWorld War IiJewish RefugeesSs St. Louis1939HavanaMeyer LanskyLeo Liebe

Places mentioned

Havana, Cuba
"Leo had arrived in Havana a year earlier."
Fürth, Bavaria, Germany
"confreres, mostly from Germany, who even davened with the same German melodies that Leo knew and liked from the first 23 years of his life in Fürth, a city in Bavaria that once had a vibrant Jewish community."
Milan, Lombardy, Italy
"Leo liked his time in Milan and at Lake Como; he had the Teutonic love of Italy"
Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany
"She had grown up in Frankfurt on the Rhine far from Leo's Fürth on the outskirts of Nuremberg."
New York, United States
"It happened by accident—it had happened not because anyone wanted it to happen, but because, in moments of decision, neither of them wanted to stop."
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
"to London during the war years and ultimately to Montreal."
Paris, Île-de-France, France
"Neither did Paris, where cousin Leah (his mother's sister's daughter) lived with her husband and where he had spent the first few months of his self-exile."
Miami, Florida, United States
"In Miami, he impressed the border control official with his command of English."

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Cairo Item ID 59766
Cairo Source ID 10
Retrieved 2025-08-21 05:33:23 UTC
Curated 2025-08-21 08:31:04 UTC