Len, nicknamed the ‘Count’ because of his aristocratic bearing, enduring courtesy and enviable command of every situation, died on 30 May 2021 at the age of 85. He was born in Wolomin, near Warsaw, in 1935. His father was, as he described him, from the Polish landed gentry with estates near Minsk, in Byelorussia, so his nickname was not altogether undeserved. The story of his life in Russian, and later German, occupied Poland before and during the second World War, his flight with his elder sister and brother-in-law to Switzerland and then, as a 15 year old ‘displaced person’, to Australia in 1950 was told by him for the first time at his farewell as a Judge of the County Court of Victoria on 6 September 2007. This story of his early life is incredible and inspiring. Please read it here. If you do not shed a tear you are heartless.
