Treasure Trove remembers Hannah Szenes, a Zionist hero executed by the Nazis 80 years ago
Hannah Szenes was a Zionist hero. Born in Hungary in 1921 to a wealthy and assimilated family, after experiencing antisemitism she became a Zionist and made aliyah to Palestine, arriving in 1939. In 1943, she approached the Jewish Agency to see if she could help the resistance movements in Europe. She was trained as a paratrooper […]
Treasure Trove: As children head back to school, David Matlow explores a perilous time for Jewish students
As school opens this week, we have the opportunity for a brief moment to consider the experience of Jewish students going back to school in Vienna in 1938. After the Nazi Anschluss (annexation) of Austria in 1938, a young Viennese rabbi, Wolf Gottlieb, sought permission from the Nazi authorities under Adolf Eichmann for the Jewish […]
Obituary: Reuben Sinclair, 111, Canada’s oldest veteran, remembered for his service and his zest for life
Reuben Sinclair, a Second World War veteran and a fixture at Remembrance Day school ceremonies in Vancouver, frequently addressing students more than a century his junior, died on Aug. 27. He was 111. Until his passing, Sinclair was the oldest living Canadian veteran, the country’s oldest man and, reportedly, the third oldest man in the […]
Back to the future for a Toronto couple whose parents all met each other in a displaced persons camp in Ainring, Germany
This is where it all began for us, in this gemutlich Bavarian town of Ainring. Just 30 minutes west of Salzburg over the Austrian border into southern Germany, this sleepy place—verdant, tidy, ringed by splendid snow-topped mountains, home to 10,000 residents—is where my wife and I spoke of coming for all our 40 years together. […]
How a downed Jewish airman’s mezuzah and book ended up in my hands: Ellin Bessner
Montreal salesman Joseph Rabiner waited until he was 19 to enlist because he was caring for a sick, widowed mother.
A family retraces the last steps of Sgt. Harry Bochner of Toronto, who was one of the last casualties in the Second World War
The family of the fallen soldier thinks he was “the most prolific letter writer in Canadian military history.”
On Remembrance Day, Hannah Srour-Zackon recalls her namesake who served in the Second World War
To you from failing hands we throw The torch; be yours to hold it high If ye break faith with us who die We shall not sleep… November often coincides with the Hebrew month of Heshvan, during which my family marks the anniversaries of several deaths. This year, the period began on the evening of […]
How this Montreal businessman just repaid a 78-year old debt to France, where his father was rescued from the Nazis on D-Day 1944
It was an overcast day in early April when Montreal businessman Harvey Engelberg found himself in the middle of a muddy farmer’s field in northern France, reciting the Jewish memorial prayer for the dead. Engelberg was repaying a 78-year old debt on behalf of his late father. Cobby Engelberg had served as an RCAF radio […]
Jews and Mennonites, in Winnipeg and the old country: It’s complicated
Members of Winnipeg’s Jewish community are welcoming the publication of new research by the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) into its entanglement with National Socialism before and after the Second World War. The MCC is the international humanitarian aid arm of the Canadian and American Mennonite churches. “I’m pleased and impressed with MCC’s honesty, purposefulness and […]
Even as he turns 100, RCAF veteran Mickey Heller goes back to memories of the Second World War
For most of his life, my grandfather, Mickey Heller, tried to put the memories of the Second World War behind him. After two years in Europe as a navigator in the Royal Canadian Air Force, he returned home to Toronto in 1944, married his sweetheart, started a family and a business and seemingly never looked […]
