Mezei, Leslie

Leslie Mezei was born in 1931 in Hungary in a little town called Gödöllő. He had a good relationship with his mother and father. His father was an officer in the Hungarian army, and a lawyer. Leslie lived in a small house and had a tough childhood with some anti-Semitism appearing in his neighborhood and local school, but without violence. The Holocaust certainly changed that, as Leslie’s family was torn apart.  They were taken from their home, and Leslie’s father was deported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. Leslie and his brothers ended up in the chaos of wartime Budapest, where they managed to survive the cruelty and inhumanity of the wartime regime. After the war, Leslie met Annie Wasserman and moved to Canada in 1948. In Montreal, he completed high school and graduated from McGill University, and later he moved to Toronto and got a master’s degree from the University of Toronto, where he became a professor.  Leslie was interviewed at Crestwood Preparatory College in January 2020, when he spoke to Mr. Defranco’s English 8 class.