Eighty years ago, on April 15, 1945, the notorious Nazi death camp Bergen-Belsen, in Germany, was liberated by Allied troops. To their horror, British artillery crews discovered about 60,000 starving and deathly ill survivors, as well as 10,000 corpses lying, unburied, on the ground.
It was a sight and smell that the late Jack Marcovitch never forgot. The Ottawa veteran had only turned 22 when he arrived there as an army private in the closing weeks of the Second World War. His family believes he played a role in one the war’s most iconic scenes: the arrest of Bergen-Belsen’s commandant, Josef Kramer, notoriously dubbed “The Beast of Belsen”.
Marcovitch rarely spoke about his experiences at Bergen-Belsen, where Anne Frank had died of typhus just a few months earlier. Now, on the milestone anniversary of the camp’s liberation, Marcovitch’s daughters—Linda Eisenberg and Gloria Borts—join The CJN Daily to share what their father brought home with him and how the trauma marked him for life.
Transcript
Transcripts are AI-generated and may contain errors
Jack Marcovitch: The stench, the stench was something.
It was something that you cannot understand.
You can’t. You’re not there. You’re in a house of clean fresh air.
You know what was going on there?
It was something that it’s unbelievable.
This was systematic killing.
Of ordinary people.
Ellin Bessner: That’s the voice of the late Jack Marcovitch, speaking in a CBC News story from about 40 years ago. The former Second World War veteran telling the interviewer what he saw when he arrived at the Bergen- Belsen Nazi death camp in Germany in April 1945, after the overseers agreed to surrender peacefully to Allied troops. The son of Romanian Jewish immigrants, Private Marcovitch had just turned 22. He’d been in the Canadian army for a couple of years, having quit his job as a plumber in Montreal to enlist in 1942.
After landing in Europe and fighting his way through France, Marcovitch came across one Nazi death camp with a crematorium before he saw Belsen. That first camp is called Vught and it’s located in the southeastern part of the Netherlands. There he found storerooms full of Jewish religious artifacts left behind when the Nazis deported their victims to the death camps in Poland. Although Marcovitch couldn’t take all the sacred objects with him, he asked permission to save a few—a prayer shawl and a prayer book, which he brought home with him after the war.
Yet even that glimpse of the true fate of Europe’s Jews couldn’t have prepared him for what he would see at Bergen-Belsen half a year later. He never told his family the full details of what he experienced. The British army rolled into the death camp on April 15, 1945, and found 10,000 unburied bodies and 50 or 60,000 starving, deathly sick survivors. His family believes Marcovitch was the stern-looking soldier who was shown in an iconic black-and-white British army film clip holding a rifle pointed directly at the commandant of the camp, Josef Kramer, known as “The Beast of Belsen”, when Kramer was arrested for war crimes.
Jack Marcovitch: It’s not to show people what had happened. It’sto show them that we shouldn’t forget.
Ellin Bessner: I’m Ellin Bessner and this is what Jewish Canada sounds like for Tuesday, April 15, 2025. Welcome to The CJN Daily, a podcast of the Canadian Jewish News and made in part thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation.
Jack Marcovitch is one of an estimated 1,000 Canadian soldiers to encounter Bergen-Belsen after the liberation, which was 80 years ago this week. He barely talked about it to anyone. He did tell a few people about where he rescued the tallit and the prayer book in Holland, which he brought back to Canada and used only on special occasions throughout his life. Jack Marcovitch died in 1994 in Ottawa, just a while after the CBC interviewed him and his son Don to talk to him about that wartime army film clip showing him at Belsen. It had just been broadcast in a documentary and until then he hadn’t really talked to his kids about the war.
I uncovered Marcovitch’s remarkable story while doing research for my book “Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military and World War II”, which tells the story of the 17,000 plus Canadians of Jewish faith who fought Hitler, published by the U of T Press. On today’s episode of the CJN Daily, I’m joined by Markovich’s daughters, Linda Eisenberg in Chicago and Gloria Bortz in Ottawa, who tell their father’s story for the first time. Welcome to the CJN Daily, both of you.
Linda Eisenberg: Thank you. Glad to be here.
Gloria Borts: Nice to be here.
Ellin Bessner: Well, it’s an honour to have you. As we in the world and in Canada and the States mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen Belsen, our listeners may not know, but I’ve written and you’ve spoken about your father’s part in the liberation of Bergen Belsen over the years. He is actually renowned in historical circles because there’s actually video of him at Bergen Belsen liberating the camp and arresting the commandant. When were you aware that he is immortalized in that film? When did you ever first see it?
Gloria Borts: My brother called to say that the British had released the 30th anniversary taping from their archives, and he had watched it and thought he saw my father. He called me and said, can you check it? Did you, in those days, whatever we did, beta it. I looked at it, and he told me exactly where to look. And yes, it was my father. We both confirmed it. So that was the first time we had heard or I had heard about it or seen it.
Ellin Bessner: Did your dad know that this existed?
Gloria Borts: No, he didn’t know. I actually called him and said, Donnie found you on this. Would you like to come and see it? He did. The first time he saw it, he came to my house and was sitting on the couch. He leaned forward, and his face went white, and he said, I can smell it. So that was the first time he had seen it, and he said, I wanted to kill him and they wouldn’t let me.
Ellin Bessner: Did he know who Joseph Kramer was? Because he wasn’t wearing any insignia. He wasn’t wearing any ribbon. He didn’t have his fancy commandant uniform on. Right. How did he look?
Gloria Borts: He said he didn’t know who he was at first because of that. He was dressed in civilian clothes, trying to work his way through as not who he really was. He found out afterward. But when he did capture him, when they figured out that this was, he was more than what he said he was. And if you notice in the video, you see my father step back and lift his rifle. He said they were yelling at him not to do it because he was that angry and upset.
Ellin Bessner: And we didn’t have, you know, zoom in those days. So, Linda, you had to hear about it later, I assume, by phone, right?
Linda Eisenberg: Well, I was actually sent a copy of it so I could see it. Years later, though, I did go to the Holocaust Museum in D.C., and so, you know, I did see it, and I was watching it. It was kind of wonderful to see that.
Ellin Bessner: Wonderful. But you just hit your chest. What does that mean?
Linda Eisenberg: It means wonderful, and I don’t know, bittersweet is really probably the best way to say it.
Ellin Bessner: Had your dad ever told you before that video, if at all, what he experienced in the war?
Linda Eisenberg: Nothing.
Gloria Borts: He didn’t say a lot. He really didn’t say a lot. From my recollection, the main story I think we heard was how he—there was a smaller camp and how they bivouacked and how one of the guys was washing the jeep with a rag, and my father noticed it was part of a tallit. So he asked him where he got it. They went and found a small camp that had been left with the barbed wire and everything electrified. They took the jeep and rigged it up so that he could let it go into the fence and deactivate it. So they could get into this camp. He was able to discern that everyone was speaking Yiddish, and he was yelling at them in Yiddish to get away from the fence, which they did. The jeep went into the fence, and they were able to get in. Into this camp. That was the first real story I had ever heard about it, and that’s what stuck in my head all my life.
Ellin Bessner: This was Camp Vught in Holland, southeastern Holland. ‘s-Hertogenbosch is the big city. I went to it because of your father. And it was a crematorium there and gallows.
Gloria Borts: That’s how they got in. And I remember him saying they were starving, and they went and grabbed their chocolate bars and their KP rations, and they started handing them out. They thought he was like a messiah because he’s the only one who could communicate with them. He was in an all-French regiment and he was speaking Yiddish to them, so he was able to communicate. And yes, they found the crematorium and they found… That’s where he took a couple of things from there. But yeah, that’s the story that stays with me and has stayed with me all my life.
Ellin Bessner: You mentioned that, the tallis.
Linda Eisenberg: But he did ask if he could.
Gloria Borts: Take first, and every year since, he brought it to shul and he asked the rabbi to use it on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, because he always said he didn’t feel worthy of using it himself.
Ellin Bessner: Where is it now, the tallis?
Gloria Borts: Donnie uses it in honour of my father, and then it gets put away, and I’m sure it’ll be handed down to his sons over time.
Ellin Bessner: Let’s go back to Bergen-Belsen because what your father did at Kamp Vught, that was in like the fall of 1944. So by the time he and his unit arrived in Germany, he’d seen a lot. Why did he go to Bergen- Belsen? How did that happen? That his unit got to go in the first two days, first day, because…
Linda Eisenberg: They were attached to the British forces, and they went in with the British forces.
Ellin Bessner: The fact that he’s captured on film the very first day, they didn’t have to do any fighting to take over the camp. It was a negotiated takeover. Did he ever talk about it with you, even after watching the film? What he saw, what he experienced, who he helped?
Linda Eisenberg: The only thing I ever heard, honestly, was the smell. The smell always stays in my brain as to what he said.
He actually did have a gun in the house. That was, many years later, turned over to the Ottawa police. But he had it from the war. It had no bullets, nothing in it. It was just there in his drawer. And I had a friend that was very curious and asked him a lot of questions. And every time he came over, he wanted to see this gun. But that was the only conversation he kind of had that I heard was where it came from, but no stories about it, nothing.
And the only other thing I was aware of was that he had brought a few things back for his brother. I think for Uncle Morty, he brought back a belt or a… Something. I can’t remember, something from a German officer or something. And I’m not 100% sure what the items were, but I know those were donated to a museum in Florida.
Ellin Bessner: How did being one of the liberators and the capture of the Beast of Belsen impact him as you guys knew him, growing up?
Gloria Borts: He never really talked about it. He really didn’t after he saw the film. What you saw on that video was probably the most that I ever heard him say, other than concur with Linda. He would always come back to the smell. And that lived with him. I don’t think it was something he actually wanted to talk about. It was horrifying, as we all know.
Ellin Bessner: And did he ever go back to Europe after the war, until his passing, to go back to where some… Some veterans do, you know, for like D-Day anniversary or what have you, or take the family? Did he ever want to do that?
Linda Eisenberg: Never. He never wanted to fly overseas again, ever. That I do recall. Because when our mom wanted to go to Israel, he would not go. He was never flying overseas again.
Ellin Bessner: Your dad was quite young when he passed away at 71. Do you think that anything to do with his health after the war had anything to do with it?
Linda Eisenberg: Who knows? He was machine-gunned from the…
Gloria Borts: What was it?
Linda Eisenberg: From the waist down or something. And because that was after Bergen-Belsen and he ended up back in a hospital in England, in London. And he was given up for dead. Actually, that is a story I recall. He was given up for dead because, they walked by, they had too many people to deal with, so they kind of pushed different gurneys to the side, “Deal with him, don’t deal with him.” And my dad was pushed to the “Don’t deal with him'”pile. And I guess an orderly found him still alive the next morning and decided to help him and do what they did to help him out. But I believe there was some plate or something put in somewhere. He was there in London, I think, for a long time before they brought him back to Montreal. But, Gloria, that’s all I recall, so… Up to you to fill in, if you do.
Gloria Borts: Yeah, he was in the hospital in England for some time, a number of months. It’s funny because he brought something back as a token of that. I believe it was a felt Mickey Mouse.
Ellin Bessner: That was the rehab.
Gloria Borts: And they taught him how to sew it. And I remember Donnie had that in his bed when he was a little boy.
Linda Eisenberg: And I have the belt he made.
Ellin Bessner: He had occupational therapy to do. So was he permanently disabled because of his war injuries when you were growing up?
Gloria Borts: I know he wasn’t permanently… He had some disability. There was, I guess, small pension for veterans.
I think he did keep a little tin in his drawer, and every now and then he would scratch, and a little piece of shrapnel would come out over time, and he would save that in a little tin. And the only reason I knew about it, because I was not a good girl. So when no one was home, I’d sneak through his drawer, ’cause I used to like looking through his… He had pennies. He was saving things like that. And I remember finding this tin and it had all these little tiny pieces of metal.
Ellin Bessner: Would you say that he… Knowing now what we know medically, that he suffered from PTSD?
Gloria Borts: I don’t know. Linda, what do you think what we…
Linda Eisenberg: Do know about PTSD and all of the other things that we all now know about? Maybe, maybe. But his was done in a different way. He wasn’t angry and… Or he wasn’t taking things out on anybody. He wasn’t. He was just quiet about… About a topic he didn’t want to talk about. And nobody really asked him.
Ellin Bessner: So what would your dad have made of how things are in the world now when it comes to anti-Semitism and Jews?
Gloria Borts: Now he would be horrified. He would be beyond horrified. I don’t believe he’d be able to handle it, tolerate it, look at it, understand it. I mean, none of us can. But to him, I think it would have been even worse than… I don’t know. I can’t describe the words. Yeah, no, he couldn’t have. And we often say, “Oh, my God, if Daddy was here and saw all, this after fighting in that war and going through that, and then to see…
Linda Eisenberg: This, to understand it and to understand how anybody could want to do what they do and be so antisemitic, et cetera, et cetera. He just… Yeah, no, he wouldn’t understand it. And he would be very angry and very hurt for what he’s been through, you know, and anybody that fought in World War II and anybody that was in his position from any part of this world… How could this world be as it is after people tried so hard to fight for the freedoms, you know, and… Yeah.
Ellin Bessner: Did he ever tell you why he enlisted?
Gloria Borts: I just remember him saying he enlisted and he came home and told his mother, and she was not upset, but she cried when he did. I guess he felt that he needed to go out and protect his country. And that’s who he was. To see the antisemitism and what happened on October 7th. I don’t know that he could cope with seeing that again. I don’t know. I mean, I’m having a hard time with it.
Ellin Bessner: So one of the most important videos of Bergen-Belsen, they’re going to show this video over and over. And the photo of your dad with the rifle. When you see that now, it’s the 80th anniversary, what do you want people to understand? Because this little, Jewish, Canadian guy was there!
Linda Eisenberg: When I knew about all of this stuff, andnot long after that, I jhad gone to listen to a speaker at our synagogue. They were talking about sharing information and making sure it all gets out there. That’s when I reached out to the Holocaust Museum to make sure that that the wartime footage was correct [with his name in it] because it wasn’t correct originally. And they did correct it, and all of that was done. So I feel that it is really important that we do this. We keep this information out there because there aren’t, hardly any Holocaust survivors left. There aren’t very many children of Holocaust survivors that are comfortable speaking about what they know or what they don’t know. And there aren’t a lot of Jews, period, in my opinion, in this world who are strong enough in their beliefs and confident enough in their beliefs to allow themselves to exist as Jews and say that they are. Because they’re so afraid. That is a very, very sad statement for all of us.
Ellin Bessner: Okay. And Gloria, seeing your father’s picture at the 80th anniversary of this machine of death, what do you want people to know?
Gloria Borts: I honestly don’t know. I know that we were brought up, as Linda said, being Jewish was…is what we were, is what we were taught to be. Our values, our morals, our everything came from Judaism, came from a Jewish home, a kosher home. My mother, who’s very kosher. My father taught me how to eat a piece of bacon, because he ate it in the war. He struggled, actually, in the war, with eating, at the beginning.
Ellin Bessner: Tell me more about that.
Gloria Borts: No, when he went over and he went on the ship, they struggled with the purity of the food. He struggled with being brought up not to eat the bacon and the ham and all of that. But there was no kosher food, and he needed to eat. So that was a demon that he always had to fight with at the beginning. In the end, it didn’t matter to him in the sense that he had to survive. Right? But he struggled with his Judaism in that area.
I know we were brought up, like Linda said, strong, strong Jewish kosher home. We were very proud of being Jewish. And just recently I had something happen and someone was talking about Zionists and I turned around. They didn’t know I was Jewish. And I said, “Well, I’m a proud Jew and I’m a proud Zionist.” And they just looked at me.
Ellin Bessner: Going back to your dad, are you aware, did he follow the news that in December of 1945, Josef Kramer was sentenced to death and hung for his crimes as The Beast of Belsen?
Gloria Borts: I don’t know, but I mean, at the time we didn’t…technology wasn’t the same. Does he know? I don’t know. Did he know? I don’t know. Did he talk about it? No, I don’t recall hearing it.
Ellin Bessner: And did he ever go to veterans groups or the Legion or any parades or anything in Ottawa after he came home?
Gloria Borts: He did. Every Remembrance Day, he put on his medals, et cetera, and he went up to Parliament Hill for the memorial. Part of the Jewish veterans.
Ellin Bessner: Yeah, it’s an important legacy and your dad was a hero and he never talked about it except in this video. So we’re so lucky to have heard that from you guys.
Linda Eisenberg: Yeah, I did put the video on YouTube because I felt it very important to be out there. It’s just very interesting because over the years, very few…but once in a while, there is somebody that sends a message and most of the time they’re positive. Most of them, “Your dad’s was a hero.” Once in a while, there’s some, you know, horrible human that says, you know, Tthis is not true, and all that kind of stuff.” And I just delete it. I just felt it needed to be out there, and I felt it for my kids too. I talk about it. Sometimes they forget about it. And I know that with my nieces and my nephews, they’re very proud of the fact that their grandfather, their Zadie, did what he did.
One thing I think Daddy did do is, as a result of all that he saw and as a result of all that he was…he was a huge giver of his time. He did this clown troupe. He was one of the clowns for B’nai Brith. They entertained Smiths Falls Hospital. They did all kinds of stuff. He did stuff with Knights of Pythias. He just did. He was a huge volunteer.
Gloria Borts: Linda’s right. He gave his time. He was the person who, when there was an emergency in the city, he was the first one there to try and help. But when he passed away, we found out none of us knew that he was working with the Nepean Police Department to help young kids who were caught doing things that could have sent them astray. The police would call him in and he would actually counsel and talk to these kids and help the police try and put them on the right path. And we didn’t find out about it till he died. And the police came to give their respects. But that’s the privacy. That’s the same thing with what he did, with what happened during the war. There were many things he just kept inside his soul.
Ellin Bessner: Thank you, ladies.
Linda Eisenberg: Thank you.
Ellin Bessner: And that’s what Jewish Canada sounds like. For this episode of The CJN Daily, made possible in part thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation.
To learn more about Jack Marcovitch and other Jewish veterans who encountered Belsen and helped the survivors, you can check out my book. You can also read more about some of the survivors of Belsen whom The CJN has written about over the years, including the late Cantor Moshe Kraus of Ottawa, who sang for the Commandant.
Our show is produced by Zachary Judah Kauffman and Andrea Varsányi. Michael Fraiman is our executive producer. Marc Weisblott is the editorial director. And the music, it’s by Dov Beck Levine. Thanks for listening.
Show Notes
Related links
- Watch Jack Marcovitch at Bergen-Belsen in an old CBC interview.
- Learn about some of the Canadians who survived Bergen-Belsen, including the late Cantor Moshe Kraus of Ottawa.
- Learn about some of the Canadian soldiers who helped the survivors of Bergen-Belsen on the Veterans Affairs Canada website, as well as about Bernie Delson and Sol Goldberg.
Credits
- Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
- Production team: Zachary Kauffman (producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer), Marc Weisblott (editorial director)
- Music: Dov Beck-Levine
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