A Tapestry of Survival

A happy-go-lucky boy, Leslie Mezei attends the local high school and plays in the parks and forests surrounding his town of Gõdõllõ, Hungary, until the spring of 1944, when Nazi tanks roll through its dusty streets and change his life forever. Leslie and his family flee to Budapest to avoid deportation, but Leslie's father is immediately taken by the Nazis. With one of his brothers already in a forced labour battalion and a sister deported to a concentration camp, Leslie and his remaining family move from place to place, seeking refuge and only just escaping capture a number of times. Finally, they find safety posing as non-Jewish refugees until the Soviets liberate Budapest in January 1945. Leslie and all of his siblings joyfully reunite and eventually make their way to pre-state Israel and Canada, where they rebuild their lives. In Montreal, Leslie meets his wife, Annie, who has a survival story of her own. In Tapestry of Survival the voices of Leslie, his sisters and Annie are woven together into a larger tale of courage, resilience and the search for healing.

Leslie Mezei (also Laszlo, Laci) was born on July 9, 1931, in Godoll?, Hungary. In 1948 Leslie arrived in Canada, where he completed high school and then graduated with a bachelor?s in mathematics and physics from McGill University and a master?s in meteorology from the University of Toronto. After working as a systems analyst and manager from 1955?1965, Leslie became a professor of computer science at the University of Toronto. An early pioneer in the field of computer art, Leslie?s articles were regularly published in Computers and Automation and Artscanada. Leslie developed two new graphic programming languages and produced innovative computer art, which was exhibited internationally. In the late 1970s Leslie left the field of computer art and became a personal financial planner. Leslie married Annie Wasserman in 1953 and raised two children with her before she passed away in 1977. Leslie now lives with his wife, Kathy, in Toronto, where he is involved in an interfaith and interspiritual movement and publishes the Interfaith Unity News, whose mission is to promote a message of unity in diversity.