Leonard Auslander
Technician Fifth Class Leonard Auslander, Serial: 32166134, HQ Battery, 1st Battalion, 69th Coast Artillery (Anti-Aircraft), U.S. Army. Awards: Purple Heart with two Oak Leaf Clusters. He lived at 1234 Magnolia Avenue, Camden NJ. Buried at Mt. Sharon Cemetery, Springfield PA.
Leonard Auslander lived with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Auslander, in this home at 1234 Magnolia Avenue, in the Parkside section of Camden NJ.
Technician Fifth Class Leonard Auslander was born in Pennsylvania on April 5, 1919 to Benjamin and Anna Auslander, Jewish immigrants from Austria and Russia. His father operated a tailor shop at 232 Federal Street in Camden NJ. Leonard was the second child; his sister Hilda came two years before. By 1930 the family had moved to Camden NJ, and his father had purchased a home on Magnolia Avenue in the Parkside section of Camden. The family next door at 1248 Magnolia Avenue were the Levys; their son Jerome Levy was about the same age as Leonard Auslander. They both would not come back from the war in Europe. Leonard Auslander was a graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School in Camden NJ, and a member, along with fellow Class of 1938 member Bernard Rose, of the Pi Alpha Psi fraternity.
Leonard Auslander was inducted into the Army in 1941. He served at Fort Dix NJ and Fort Bragg NC, and was promoted to Technician 5th Class. He was initially assigned to the HQ Battery, 1st Battalion, 69th Coast Artillery (AA) and was stationed in Paterson NJ until November of 1942. He was sent overseas with an artillery unit and served in Sicily and in Italy. While overseas he was wounded and hospitalized for illness a total of three times, each time requesting permission to return to his unit on the front lines. He had been awarded the Purple Heart. According to the Camden Courier-Post, after the third time he was hospitalized, he was assigned to a conditioning company.
Leonard Auslander last wrote home on April 12, 1944, telling his parents he was well and happy. This letter arrived the same day that the War Department telegram came saying that Leonard Auslander had been killed in action on April 16, 1944.
Woodrow Wilson High School and the Pi Alpha Psi fraternity sponsored an oratorical contest in honor of Bernard Rose and Leonard Auslander, who also died while serving in the Army during World War II.
Thanks to Leonard Auslander’s niece, Joan Rochlin, for her help in creating this web page.
Board No. 11 Calls 7 Men for Draft
Camden Courier-Post —
Local Board No. 11, Wildwood and Princess avenues, announced it has ordered seven youths to appear for induction into the Army July 30. They are:
Paul Lightman, 24, of 1176 Haddon avenue; Joseph B. Kujawa, 26, of 1202 Everett street; Alfred Zanwood, 23, of 1195 Thurman street; John E. Wiley, 27, of 1061 Diamond street; Cecil W. Davis, 21, of 1213 Langham avenue; William J. Sbariscia, 23, of 1329 Decatur street, and Leonard Auslander, 22, of 1237 Magnolia avenue.
Spelling Bee Ace Seeks Honors in Oratory Contest
Camden Courier-Post —
The pretty, brown-haired young girl who, as an eighth grade pupil at Hatch Junior High school was runnerup in last spring’s Tri-County Spelling Bee, sponsored by the Courier-Post, will make a new bid for scholastic honors Thursday night.
She is Nancy Bergman, now a student at Woodrow Wilson High school, who will be one of the contenders in the Auslander-Rose Memorial Speech Contest at the school.
Cash prizes are offered for the best girl and best boy speakers in the annual oratorical contest sponsored by Pi Alpha Psi fraternity, in memory of two members killed in War II, Leonard Auslander and Bernard Rose, both of the class of 1938 at Wilson.
Others who will vie for the speech awards, which are presented at the commencement exercises in June, will be Alan Waronker, Jerald Ringold, John Miller, Harriet Newman, Marcia Israel and Mary Chipman.
A piano solo by Gloria Thomson, a soprano solo by Bernice McBurney and an organ solo by George Buell will furnish the musical portion of the program, at which Miss Jean C. Welsh, sponsor of the school speech club, will officiate. Judges of the contest will be Mrs. William Johnson, president of the Camden branch of the American University Women, and M. G. Messinger, principal of the Veterans Memorial Junior High school.
Woodrow Wilson High School Yearbook — Class of 1938
Leonard Auslander, Woodrow Wilson High School yearbook, Class of 1938.