Paula Bultz was born November 24, 1935 in Warsaw, Poland, where her family had lived for four generations. She remembers her prewar childhood in positive terms, full of family and love. All of that changed in late 1939: her father was recalled to active military service, and in September the war began. Paula’s mother made […]
Archives: Oral History Project
Young, Bob
Bob Young was born on October 29, 1924, on Pittsburgh’s south side. He grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression, and he remembers that it was a difficult time, and that the family made do with hunting game, as well as occasional scraps Bob’s father would bring home from work. Bob attended school […]
Vertes, Leslie
Leslie Vertes was born February 18, 1924 in the village of Ajak (Hungary). His father was a shoemaker who worked alongside his wife. Leslie was 14 years old when the family moved to Budapest, where he was unable to finish the last year of high school and go to university due to the prevailing anti-Jewish […]
Novak, Joseph
Joe Novak was born September 10, 1923 in Montreal, into a Polish family in the city’s Frontenac neighborhood. Both of Joe’s parents were teachers, though his father later worked for Canada Customs. Joe’s father passed away in 1934, and times were difficult for the family as the Great Depression wore on. Joe did manage to […]
Myers, Muguette
Muguette Myers was born in 1931 in Paris. Her parents had emigrated to France from Poland, hoping to leave behind the anti-Semitism of eastern Europe. Muguette’s father died when she was only three, so it became her mother’s job to support the family. Muguette had to go to school with her brother despite her young […]
Branchaud, Georges
Georges Branchaud was born June 12, 1941 in Cornwall, Ontario. His father moved the family to Valleyfield, Quebec during the war, in order to work in the war industries that were booming in that city. The family relocated to Ontario later though, and Georges grew up in Cornwall, where he decided to join the navy […]
Stewart, Harry
Harry Stewart was born July 4, 1924 in Newport News, Virginia. When he was 2 years old his parents relocated to Queens, N.Y.C., not too far from North Beach airport. Harry grew up in that neighborhood, attending school and having a good time, all against the backdrop of the Great Depression. Harry understood that the […]
Zavitz, Jack
Jack Zavitz was born June 18, 1924 in Windsor, Ontario. He grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the early part of the war, and when he finished high school he found himself in the RCAF, where he was pegged as a mechanic and trained for ground crew duty. Jack spent time […]
Bays, Jim
Jim Bays was born January 20, 1918. He grew up in the Christie Pitts neighborhood in Toronto, where he attended Central Tech. Jim grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression, so he and his friends made do, playing soccer and softball, and helping their parents where they could. When the war came, Jim […]
Caliva, Narce
Narce Caliva was born on September 7, 1929 in Salinas, California. His father originally came from the Philippines and had emigrated to California via Hawaii. In California he met his soon-to-be wife, daughter in a family who had come to the United States from Yugoslavia. Narce grew up in California against the backdrop of World […]
Kuper, Eva
Eva Kuper was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1940, into a world that had just been catapulted into war. Her parents were from Sandomierz, born into families with well-tempered expectations that had been shattered with the Nazi occupation. They ended up in the Warsaw Ghetto, where they endured the brutality and deprivation of the Shoah. […]
Alkhaykanee, Khitam
Khitam Alkhaykanee was born in Baghdad, Iraq on September 22, 1980, the same day that the Iran-Iraq War started. Growing up in a time of war, she would use that experience to foster peace, later emigrating to the United States and starting up an NGO, the Global Jothoor Foundation. Khitam grew up normally, attending school […]
Gransden, Fraser
LCdr Fraser Gransden hails from Maitland, Ontario, and is a currently serving member of the Canadian Forces. He joined the forces in 2001, attending Mt. Allison University while doing ROTP, and he trained during the summers. His first posting was the HMCS Halifax, and he also served on the HMCS St. John’s and was involved […]
Person, Charles
Charles Person was born November 13, 1943 in Atlanta, where he grew up in the Buttermilk Bottom neighbourhood, not too far from Martin Luther King’s birth home. Charles grew up in the era of Jim Crow, confronting the racial restrictions that were still in place even after the Second World War. With his parents’ blessing […]
Pretlow, Alice
Alice Pretlow was born November 21, 1956. She grew up in Batesville, Mississippi in the 1960s, and was among the first of her generation to enter desegregated schools in that state in 1964. One of eight children, she grew up on a farm, where she learned how to work hard. Her parents were committed to […]
Morgan, Allen
Allen Morgan was born May 10, 1927, and he grew up on a farm near Hudson, New Hampshire. Allen remembers working hard on that farm, all of it against the backdrop of the Great Depression. He had a good childhood though, attending school and playing baseball and hockey and occasionally catching a movie. The war […]
Washabaugh, Brad
Brad Washabaugh was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on June 15, 1954. The son of a Marine, Brad too chose to enlist, giving himself a goal in the wake of a serious motorcycle accident. He became an officer, commanding a platoon and then a company, and visiting crisis spots around the world. Brad learned the cost […]
Protected: McGregor, Andy
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Prymack, Alexander
Major Alexander Prymack is a currently serving member of the Canadian Forces. Born in 1985, he grew up in the Calgary area. His military career began in 2003, when he attended RMC in Kingston, Ontario. From there he became an artillery troop commander and forward observer, and was deployed to Afghanistan during Operation Attention, where […]
Negra, Andy
Andy Negra was born May 28, 1924. He grew up in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, as the family dealt with the realities of the Great Depression. They ended up in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, where Andy’s father was a coal miner. Andy graduated from high school there, the first in his family to do so. As he […]
Bolgar, Ted
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 […]
Dawang, Elie
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 […]
Margol, Hilbert
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. […]
Herschel, Tswi
Tswi Herschel was born December 29, 1942 in Zwolle, a small town in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. In January 1943, the family was forced to leave Zwolle and moved to the Jewish ghetto in Amsterdam, where Tswi’s father contacted non-Jewish Dutch friends and asked them to help his newborn son. In March 1943, a Protestant Dutch […]
Kirby, Larry
Larry Kirby was born June 21, 1924, in Brookline, Massachusetts. He grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression, dealing with the deprivation and circumstances that were part of the era. Still, Larry doesn’t remember that time in a negative way; it was just the reality that all families in his neighbourhood encountered. Larry’s […]
Goldig, Fishel
Fishel Goldig was born in 1933 in Mielnica, in eastern Poland. In 1939 the family found itself under Soviet occupation, following the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. With Operation Barbarossa and the arrival of the Germans in 1941, Fishel and his family were forced into the ghetto in the nearby town of Borszczow. Conditions deteriorated, and rumours […]
Funge, Noel
Noel Funge was born December 26, 1929 in Melbourne, Australia. He grew up against the backdrop of the 1930s economic crisis, where he was fortunate to win a scholarship to an elite school. He also grew up during World War Two, when Australia was under severe threat from Japan; as such Noel completed his military […]
Picot, Ryerson
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 […]
Newman, Margaret
Margaret Newman (nee Kaufman) was born March 29, 1923 in Satu Mare, Romania. She was the second child in a family of eight children, and as the eldest daughter it was her job to maintain a respectable and observant household. When Satu Mare and the surrounding region were annexed by Hungary, life became more complicated […]
Blank, Ed
Ed Blank hails from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he was born in 1943. He was the youngest sibling in his family, and he grew up following in the footsteps of his older brothers and sisters – scouting, college and the ROTC. The family lived a good life, replete with the luxuries of the 50s, including a […]