As ceremonies are held across Canada for Yom ha-Shoah, the commemoration of the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, we bring you the little-known story of a Montreal father of four who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Although Harry Cohen had been born in Poland, he’d immigrated to Canada in 1919 and lived for decades in Montreal with his wife and the couple’s four children. On the eve of the Second World War, in June 1939, Cohen decided to take a quick trip back to Europe – he wanted to see his sister and to inspect some of the family’s fabric factories in Opatow. But when Hitler invaded Poland after Cohen arrived, his Canadian residency documents were not enough to help him escape the fate of Europe’s Jews under Hitler’s Final Solution.
Although Cohen’s family never heard from him again, and still don’t know exactly when he was killed, they’ve pieced together what happened thanks to a mysterious parcel that arrived back in Canada after the war. It contained his tallit, siddur (prayerbook) and some travellers cheques with his Montreal address on it. The sender? A Polish Christian woman who had risked everything to hide him before the Gestapo found him.
Harry’s family has donated his tallit to the Montreal Holocaust Museum, where his granddaughter Ann Cohen now volunteers to take students on tours and shares the tallit’s incredible story. She joins The CJN Daily, along with the Museum’s marketing director Sarah Fogg.
- Read about Harry Cohen’s tallit being one of the most important artifacts at Montreal’s Holocaust Museum, in The CJN.
- Watch Ann Cohen hold the prayer shawl for the first time in 2016
- Read about B’nai Brith’s latest survey of anti-Semitic incidents in Canada, on The CJN.ca
Credits
The CJN Daily is written and hosted by Ellin Bessner (@ebessner on Twitter). Zachary Kauffman is the producer. Michael Fraiman is the executive producer. Our theme music is by Dov Beck-Levine. Our title sponsor is Metropia. We’re a member of The CJN Podcast Network. To subscribe to this podcast, please watch this video. Donate to The CJN and receive a charitable tax receipt by clicking here.
