Nate Leipciger was born in 1928, in Chorzow, Poland. He survived the Sosnowiec Ghetto and the camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Fünfteichen, GrossRosen, Flossenberg, Leonberg, and Dachau. Nate and his father were liberated in May 1945, and Nate immigrated to Canada in 1948.
Nate came to speak at Crestwood in November 2013, when he was interviewed by Danielle Gionnas, Nasir Jamali, and Brooklynn Hamilton.  Nate’s memoirs, The Weight of Freedom,  were published by the Azrieli Foundation in 2015, and Nate in 2018 spoke alongside Theo Fontaine, a residential school survivor; the joint presentation highlighted the abuse both suffered in their young lives and pointed to the healing power they found in the written and spoken word.  In the summer of 2019 Scott Masters visited Nate and his wife Bernice in their home in Toronto, alongside Arielle Meyer and Emily Ann Putzke.