'Health & Fitness

SPORTS

Lasting Tribute

Award memorializes Holocaust survivor.

Steve Stein
Special to the Jewish News

T

here's probably no more aptly
named honor than the Leon
Weberman Courage Award.
Presented for the first time this
year at the annual
International Jewish
Men's Slo-Pitch Softball
Tournament in Toronto,
the award honors play-
ers, coaches and others
involved in the tourna-
ment who display cour-
Leon
age in the face of extreme
Weberman
adversity. It's also a way
for the Weberman fam-
ily to keep alive the memory of a man
who survived Nazi atrocities in the Lodz
ghetto and the Auschwitz and Mauthausen
concentration camps — but not robbers'
bullets.
He was shot by death Dec. 21, 1978, at his
scrapyard on the Detroit/Hamtramck bor-

der, perishing at age 49. The murderer was
never caught.
"Despite everything he endured, my
father was a caring, loving, philanthropic
man who put smiles on the faces of every-
one he met. He fed homeless people sand-
wiches every Sunday at his business;' said
Bruce Weberman, who has played in the
international softball tournament every
year but once since 1985.
Weberman, 46, a Waterford resident, is
the youngest of Leon and Freda (Levine)
Weberman's four children. Marc, 57, Eddie,
55, and Aron, 52, live in West Bloomfield, as
does Freda, 78, in the home she moved into
with her husband and children in 1972.
"My mother is my hero;' Bruce said.
"She kept our family together after my
dad was killed."
The brothers have 11 children and one
grandchild. All are married except Bruce,
who is engaged.
The first two winners of the Courage
Award were Motor City Hitmen softball
player Dave Ettlinger and umpire Ruby

Goodman from Montreal, both cancer
survivors. Each was presented a plaque by
Hitmen manager Rick Sherline during
an emotional ceremony at the tournament
banquet. Neither honoree knew about the
award because it was new
Sherline and Bruce Weberman are long-
time friends, Hitmen teammates and B'nai
B'rith Great Lakes Region softball players.
The Hitmen have won three staight tourna-
ment championships.
Bruce chose the award winners this year.
The selection process will be a family effort
from now on; tournament team managers
will be asked for nominations.
"Dave and Ruby exemplify what the
award is all about;' Bruce said. "Everyone
loves Ruby. We could never get mad at him."
The tournament will be played in Las
Vegas in 2011 before returning to Detroit in
2012. It was last held here in 2003.
Leon Weberman's story is one of sadness,
a life that ended much too soon, and of
incredible intestional fortitude.
Before being transported to Auschwitz in
a cattle car in 1944, he was forced by Nazi
Germany invaders in Lodz to do slave labor,
like pulling carts. After being caught by
prison guards breaking into the officers' food

supply at Auschwitz to bring food to other
prisoners, he was dunked headfirst into boil-
ing water and had both his legs broken.
In May 1945, he and other prisoners
awoke at Mauthausen to find the camp
guards had fled as Allied troops approached.
He was rescued by American soldiers.
He came to Detroit in 1949 to begin a
new life. He met his future wife in 1950 and
they were married in 1951.
"Raising his family and providing his
children with educational opportunities he
never had were the proudest moments of
my father's life Bruce Weberman said.
Leon Weberman was an active mem-
ber and one-time president of the Albert
Einstein Lodge of B'nai B'rith.

Hoops On Tap
It's tipoff time for the 35th season of
basketball in the B'nai B'rith Great Lakes
Region. Games will be played Sunday
mornings at Walled Lake Central High
School. Players must be paid members of
B'nai B'rith. For information, call Marty
Melton at (248) 921-1539.

❑

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December 30 • 2010