Leo Litwak (1924–2018)

Leo Litwak was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. His parents were Bessie and Isaac Litwak, Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. His father was an auto assembly line worker who became a union leader. At age 17, Leo was drafted by the U.S. Army during World War II and served as a combat medic with an infantry platoon that fought through Belgium and Germany. After the war, Litwak attended Wayne State University on the G.I. Bill. He also attended the University of Michigan and did graduate work at the New School for Social Research and Columbia University in New York City. In 1951, he joined the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis. He married Katherine Fisk, with whom he had a daughter, Jessica Litwak, who became a playwright. In 1960, the family moved to San Francisco, where Litwak taught English literature at San Francisco State University for more than 30 years. He published his first novel, To the Hanging Gardens, in 1964. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship to co-write a nonfiction book about the student strikes of 1968, and published College Days in Earthquake Country with Herbert Wilner in 1971. In 1969, he published the novel Waiting for the News, inspired by his father's life, which won the 1970 National Jewish Book Award. His short story "The Eleventh Edition" received first prize in the 1990 O. Henry Award competition. More than 50 years after the fact, Litwak published an unflinching memoir about his experiences in World War II, The Medic: Life and Death in the Last Days of WWII (2001). He also appeared in William Farley's 2021 documentary, I Wanted to Be a Man With a Gun: Three American Soldiers in World War II, talking candidly about war along with fellow veterans Paul Mico and Harold Kozloff.