Dr. Leon Bass Honored at Chicago Benefit Dinner
June 6, 2008
Dr. Leon Bass was honored at the 17th Annual Facing History and Ourselves Chicago Benefit Dinner on April 22, 2008 at the Chicago Hilton. Over 900 people attended the event, which raised over $1.4 Million for Facing History and Ourselves' work in Chicago and around the world. Co-chairs for the event were Les Coney and Paul Meister.
Dr. Bass shared his dramatic personal story as one of the first soldiers to enter the Buchenwald Concentration Camp after its liberation in 1945. As an African American who endured humiliating discrimination, this experience had a profound impact on him and his future. He returned to Philadelphia to become a teacher and then a principal, but he never forgot the horror of what he saw at Buchenwald.
After Dr. Bass spoke, Margot Stern Strom, Executive Director of Facing History and Ourselves, presented Dr. Bass with a tribute book and thanked him for the many years for which he has been telling his story in Facing History and Ourselves classrooms throughout the country, influencing young people in the life choices they make.
