Szalet, Leon

Leon Szalet was born on April 9th 1892 in Zelechow (Poland). As a boy he moved with his parents to Warsaw where he attended and finished school and later set himself up in business. In 1921 he moved to Berlin and became active in the real estate business. With his friend Georg Breslauer, an architect, he developed a design for prefabricated houses made of steel in 1926. They applied for patents, which were granted in several important industrial countries. Model houses based on this design were shown at the Olympia building exhibition (with the cooperation of the British Steelwork Association) in London in 1936. The outbreak of the war interrupted the work.

On September 13, 1939 Leon Szalet was taken prisoner by the Gestapo and sent to the concentration camp Sachsenhausen. On May 7th 1940 he was released and escaped to the Far East via Italy on the SS Conte Verde (the last ship to leave for Asia before the outbreak of the war). He came to Shanghai and remained there until October 1941 when he was granted an immigration visa to the United States. He entered the US on October 23, 1941 in San Francisco.

In the US, Leon Szalet tried to renew his contacts in order to reestablish his business. He demanded reparations for the loss of properties in Berlin and was able to reclaim a building. In 1957 he travelled through Europe (Austria, France, Britain, Germany). Health problems forced him to stay in sanatoriums in Austria and England.

Leon Szalet died in Berlin on March 2, 1958.

Leon Szalet had a daugther, Gitla-Matla Szalet (Madleine Lejwa-Chalette), who was born in Paris in 1914, while here parents were visiting there. In 1947, she married Arthur Lejwa, a Polish biochemist. The couple opened a gallery in Manhattan and became successful art dealers in the 1950s. Following her husband's death in 1972, Gitla-Matla Szalet closed the Galerie Chalette, but contined working as an art consultant to collectors and museums. She died in 1996.

From the guide to the Leon Szalet Collection, 1914-1996, (Leo Baeck Institute)