Ted Bolgar was born September 12, 1924 in Sarospatak, a small town in Hungary. The Germans occupied Hungary in March 1944, and in April, the Jews of Sarospatak were forced into the ghetto of a nearby town. When the ghetto was liquidated in June, all the inhabitants were deported to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, Ted and […]
Elie Dawang was born to Lithuanian-Jewish parents, Faiwish and Shaina, in 1934 in Paris. Elie was six years old when the Germans occupied France in 1940. The Dawangs fled to a small village near the Spanish border but returned to Paris in 1941 to liquidate the family business. The family had false papers but the […]
Hilbert Margol was born February 22, 1924, just ten minutes before his twin brother Howard, in Jacksonville, Florida. Their father had immigrated from Lithuania not too long before, as had their mother. The boys grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression, learning about the war that seemed to be happening a world away. […]
Nursing Week is the annual celebration of this critical profession. It is held every May to coincide with the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. This year more than ever we have to be aware of the critical role these health care providers play in Canadian society, as has been true through […]
Ryerson Picot was born June 27, 1925 in Terra Cotta, Ontario. He grew up in northern Ontario against the backdrop of the Great Depression, and the family followed the father as he moved from job-to-job on the Canadian National Railroad. Ryerson longed to join the army when the war came along, and he managed to […]
Raymond Goulet was born January 14, 1923 in Lawrence, Massachusetts. His parents were French-Canadian, so Ray and his brothers grew up speaking French and English, and attending Catholic schools, all against the backdrop of the Great Depression. When the war came, Ray chose to volunteer, while his two brothers were drafted. He went through basic […]
Avraham Peter grew up in the city of Lodz, Poland, where he was born August 12, 1926. His parents had their own factory/business and the family was living a good, observant life, and the young Abe attended a Jewish school, and was raised in part by his grandparents. Anti-Semitism was a reality in 1930s Lodz […]
Harry Miller was born July 2, 1928 in Columbus, Ohio. He would serve in the American Army in the Second World War, when he was not yet 18 years old. Harry’s mother died when he was only 3, so it would be his father and sister who guided the family through the difficult days of […]
Albert Card was born March 12, 1924 in Hastings, England. He grew up there in a big family, and Bert remembers they did well even during the Depression, because of his father’s food allotment. Life in Hastings was good: Bert grew up on the beach, going to school, playing sports – all the normal things. […]
Rod White was born February 16, 1925 in Trenton, Ontario. Rod’s father died when he was only four, and some of his early memories are of his mother struggling to raise her seven children in difficult economic times. Rod left school after Grade 8, going to work and helping to support the family. Work took […]
Wally Adam was born in Winnipeg during the Second World War, where his father was serving in the Army Pay Corps. He grew up there, and decided to join the RCAF Reserves in his own right when he was in high school. After university, Wally enlisted in the RCAF, serving during the Cold War years. […]
Gail Halvorsen was born October 10, 1920 in northern Utah, where he grew up on a sugar beet farm, enjoying the great outdoor life the state had to offer. Gail worked hard during those years, and he decided to look into a civilian pilot training program that he had heard about. When the Pearl Harbour […]
Roland Glenn was born June 5, 1924; he grew up in small town Pennsylvania, against the backdrop of the Great Depression. He recalls a good childhood, where his family raised him with love and positive energy, in a time when that was in short supply for many Americans. His father and grandfather had instilled him […]
Stanley Grizzle was born in Toronto in 1918, to Jamaican parents who immigrated to Canada in 1911. He grew up in downtown Toronto, where he attended Prince Edward School and later Harbord Collegiate. He became a railway porter at the age of 22 to help support his family. In 1938 he became involved in the […]
George Herbert Beardshaw was born September 14, 1923 in Thorne, Yorkshire, England. He grew up in Garden Boys City, one of the Barnardo orphanages. He remembers that one day a man came into class, asking who wanted to go to Canada: George raised his hand, and in 1938 was off on the grand journey. He […]
This past Wednesday, January 27, was Holocaust Remembrance Day. On January 27, 1945, Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration and death camp, was liberated by the Soviet Red Army, and in subsequent months other camps were liberated by the Allies. International Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorates the end of the genocide that resulted in the deaths of […]
Julia Parsons was born March 2, 1921 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her father was an instructor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology, and her mother was a kindergarten teacher. Julia recalls her childhood as being a traditional one, as dictated by the Victorian mores of the time. The family was not heavily impacted by the Depression, […]
Les Mitelman is a Crestwood grandfather; his grandson Liam Stern was in Grade 8 at the time this interview was completed. Les was born in Tarnopol, Poland on July 21, 1938, so he was only a baby when the war began, so growing up he had to learn the unspeakable and horrible lessons the Shoah […]
Guy Prestia was born April 26, 1922 in Pennsylvania. The son of an Italian immigrant and a Pennsylvanian, he grew up alongside his siblings against the backdrop of the Great Depression. Guy recalls that his father worked hard, supporting the family during the economic downturn and then doing war work once the United States entered […]
Daniel Gold was born in Lithuania on February 10, 1937. When the war began for Lithuania – in 1941 – the country was quickly overrun by the Germans, and Lithuanian Jews were placed in ghettos, and not longer after the mass murder began. Daniel remembers having to be quiet while Lithuanian neighbours were initiating the […]
Dear Parents, While it was a short week with students in school enjoying the glorious warm weather, we still managed to squeeze in some important events! Thank you to the admin team of the CSPA for hosting the first ZOOM CSPA meeting this past Tuesday. We were so pleased by the exceptional turnout, and […]
Ralph Russo was born July 7, 1917 in Newcastle, Pennsylvania. He grew up there against the backdrop of the Great Depression, when times were tough. Ralph’s father was able to hold on to his job during that time, and Ralph picked up work at a local foundry. When 1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbour […]
Ron Goldstein was born August 16, 1923 , in London, England. His parents, looking to escape the anti-Semitism and lack of opportunity, had immigrated to England from Poland in the years before the Great War. They went on to raise a large family, and Ron was the 10th in a family of 11. Ron left […]
John O’Henly was born March 15, 1923, and he grew up in the east end of Toronto. He attended RH MacGregor Public School, and after one year at East York, he opted to go to Danforth Tech, as he was interested in their art course. He spent much of his spare time with his friends […]
Bill Morgan was born April 23, 1925 in Consett, England, a small city on the east coast, not too far from Newcastle. Bill’s mother passed away when he was just five, and at that time he moved in with his grandparents and aunts, and his father’s role in his life diminished. Bill grew up an […]
Major Travis Kelley had a family background in the military, so he was interested at a young age. He studied Engineering at the University of Waterloo and joined the Army Reserves when he was finishing his undergrad. He then did basic training at the Wolseley Barracks and completed other training as a Combat Engineer in […]
Tyler Smith was born in Calgary, Alberta, a city that had a very deep tradition for the navy, in spite of its inland location. One of the first steps he took in order to achieve his goal of joining the military was to join the sea cadets, a program that the navy sets up in […]
Jim Lister was born January 5, 1928 in Toronto. He grew up in the tough days of the Great Depression and well remembers that the family lost their home. He also remembers exploring the Don Valley, and how different a city Toronto was at the time. Jim had older brothers and two of them enlisted […]
Leslie Mezei was born in 1931 in Hungary in a little town called Gödöllő. He had a good relationship with his mother and father. His father was an officer in the Hungarian army, and a lawyer. Leslie lived in a small house and had a tough childhood with some anti-Semitism appearing in his neighborhood and […]
Ann Collins was born November 27,1925 in Nottingham, England. She was only 13 when WWII broke out; it ended her schooling, and sent her to work, and forced her to endure the Blitz and everything else associated with the war. Ann joined the ATS when she was 17; she expressed that her time in the British […]