Lester M. Libo collection

Lester Martin Libo (1923-2015) was born on 23 September 1923 in Chicago, Illinois to Leopold and Anita Libo. Leopold (1890-1986) immigrated to the United States around 1917 from Ekaterninslav (Dnipro, Ukraine). Anita (née Perl, 1896-1992) was born in Rivne, Ukraine and immigrated to the United States in 1913 with her father and older sister Esther. Leopold and Anita met and married in Chicago in 1922. Lester’s family identified culturally as Jewish and spoke Yiddish at home. Lester graduated high school in 1941 and attended Central YMCA College (later Roosevelt University) and majored in psychology. He enlisted in the United States Army in 1943. In January 1945, Lester was a Corporal with the 5th Infantry Regiment, 71st Infantry Division and went overseas to France. Lester was among the American liberators of the Gunskirchen Lager, and one of the first soldiers to reach the camp. After the end of the war, he was transferred to Regensburg to serve with the Detachment E-204, Public Safety Special Branch in their denazification efforts. His unit evaluated questionnaires filled out by Germans to determine their Nazi affiliations and whether or not they should be removed from the US Zone.

Lester was honorably discharged from the United States Army in May 1946. He received his doctorate from Stanford in psychology and from 1963-1983 worked at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, where he was a founding member and Professor Emeritus of the Department of Psychology and Psychiatry. Lester was also the author of several books, including The Finishing Touch: A Historical Novel, based on his denazification work after the war.