Fred Roles was born in 1920s London, the son of a firefighting family. He vividly remembers the beginning of the Blitz in 1940; when his neighbourhood was bombed, he and his mother had the good fortune to be at the back of the family home. He vowed to shoot down those German planes as soon […]
Archives: Oral History Project
Small, Larry
Larry Small was born in Toronto in 1920. He grew up in the neighbourhoods of the city’s downtown core, against the backdrop of the Great Depression. The son of Jewish immigrants, Larry had to leave school when he was 14, when he went to work to help support his family. He worked as a newsboy, […]
Dinney, Stan
Stan Dinney was born in New Brunswick in 1922, near Moncton. His father moved the family to Windsor, Ontario for a few years when Stan was young, but he took the family back to Moncton with the coming of the Great Depression, when he secured employment at a family lumber mill. Stan enjoyed his early […]
Montejo, Maria
Maria Montejo is a member of the Mam Jakaltec community of Indigenous people who reside in the Xajla territory of Guatemala. Twenty-five years ago, Maria and her family came to Canada as refugees and settled in Toronto. Maria works to introduce Canadians to the basic knowledge of the worldview of Indigenous Peoples, as well as their spiritual […]
Horn-Miller, Waneek
Waneek Horn-Miller, a Mohawk from the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory near Montreal, was behind the lines during the Oka crisis, in 1990, when she was stabbed by a Canadian soldier’s bayonet. This near-death experience was a turning point for her. She went on to co-captain Canada’s Olympic women’s water polo team and currently she works to attract […]
isKwe
Iskwé was born and raised in Winnipeg, and is currently living in Toronto after stints in Los Angeles and New York. Iskwé is an upcoming force in the music scene, who has been called “one to watch” by The Grid, and “one of the top 10 Canadian musicians you need to know” by CBC Music. Her […]
LaForme, Stacey
Stacey LaForme is the newly elected Chief of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation (MNCFN). Born and raised on MNCFN, Chief LaForme worked as an iron worker before being elected to council in 1999. Chief LaForme has participated in many committees and boards throughout his years in MNCFN politics. Notably, Chief LaForme was instrumental in raising […]
Wesley-Esquimault, Cynthia
Dr. Cynthia Wesley-Esquimaux is the first Indigenous Chair for Truth and Reconciliation on behalf of Lakehead University, Thunder Bay and Orillia. Her research and academic writing is directed towards understanding the continuing transmission of unresolved intergenerational trauma and grief, primarily within the Indigenous community of Canada. We were honoured to have her as our keynote […]
Norton, Thomas
Thomas Norton is a photographer, film maker and singer/songwriter, and also makes jewelry. Born in Southampton, Ontario, Thomas is a member of the Saugeen First Nation who currently resides in Toronto. He was a participant in Crestwood’s “Towards Reconciliation” Symposium, held on November 10, 2016, where he spoke about his experiences as a survivor of the […]
Clarke, George Elliott
George Elliott Clarke is a Canadian poet and playwright who is currently serving as the Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate. His work largely explores the experience and history of the Black Canadian communities of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, creating a cultural geography that Clarke refers to as “Africadia”. Of Afro-Metis origin, George is also researching that side […]
Gelbard, Edith
Edith Gelbard was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1932. She lived with her parents, sister and grandmother. After the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, her family fled to Belgium and then to France. In 1942, her father was murdered in Auschwitz. Edith and her brother were hidden in an orphanage. She was liberated in 1945 and […]
Shulman, Saul
Born in the small town of Klimontov, Poland in 1938, Saul was only an infant when Europe transformed into a war zone. He was born into a loving family: his father was a banker, his mother was a homemaker, and he had two older brothers. Saul remembers very little of this briefly relatively peaceful life […]
Salsberg, Kitty
Kitty Salsberg was born in Budapest, Hungary, on November 14, 1932. Orphaned after the war, Kitty and her younger sister, Ellen, immigrated to Canada in 1948 through the Canadian Jewish Congress’s War Orphans Project. Kitty and her younger sister, Ilonka, arrived in Canada with painful memories from the Holocaust, which took both of their parents. […]
Heimann, Paul
Paul Heimann was born June 1, 1924 in Austria. When the Anschluss took place, Paul and his parents found themselves at the centre of Hitler’s ambitions, and they felt the full weight of Nazism with the Kristallnacht. Their synagogue was burned, and the stormtroopers prevented the fire department from taking action. Paul’s parents saw the […]
Tymchuk, Bill
Bill Tymchuk was born in Ukraine, when it was under Polish control; he went to school there for 2 years and immigrated to Canada in 1930 (his father had settled down in Canada in 1928). His family was on the farm, and he started school and learned English quickly. Later his family went to Stayner, Ontario and […]
Chase, Jean
Jean Chase is a survivor from Trembovla, Poland, a small village near Tarnopol. Born in 1933, Jean was the only child of Chuna and Nechama Goldstein. When the Nazis came, the family was relocated to the Tarnopol ghetto, and though she was very young Jean remembered many key moments from this period. She recalled the […]
Blium, Reuven
Reuven Blium survived the Holocaust in Lithuania, a country where as many as 95% of Jews were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators. Reuven was born in 1930 in Kaunas, into a family of limited means. Reuven’s father passed away when Reuven was only 3, and his mother had no alternative but to put […]
Cohen, Norman
Norman Cohen was born in the east end of Toronto in 1923. Growing up Jewish in the Beach neighbourhood, Norman dealt with the anti-Semitism of the era, as well as the economic pressures that led him to quit school at age 16. Norman found work around the neighbourhood, and he fondly remembered working for Charlie’s […]
Smith, Mike
Mike Smith was born in the USSR, in the former republic of Belarus. He grew up near Pinsk, in a traditional Jewish family. When the war came to the USSR in 1941, he joined the Soviet Red Army, where he became a member of the Scouts’ Brigade. Doing some of the most dangerous work behind […]
Friedman, Reny
Reny Friedman is a child survivor from the Netherlands. She and her twin brother were born in 1937, just as prewar tensions were building up. Reny’s mother was from germany, and sensing what was to come, she looked for ways to protect her family. The family managed to secure the help of the underground, going […]
Friedman, Lili
Lili Friedman is a child survivor from the Holocaust and a longtime supporter of our program here at Crestwood. Born in Poland at the outset of the war, Lili grew up in the Lodz ghetto, from where she remembers snippets of her childhood. She and her family were deported to Auschwitz with the liquidation of the […]
Gondek, Zbigniew
Zbigniew Gondek served in the Polish Army during World War Two. Born in Szemysyl in 1923, he and his family found themselves in the Soviet Zone of occupation after the 1939 Nazi Soviet Pact. Zbigniew’s father, a police officer, was murdered, and Zbigniew and his mother were transported to Siberia, where they ended up in a […]
Hunter, Gordon
Gordon Hunter is from north Toronto, a graduate of Lawrence Park, where he finished his diploma at the midpoint of the war. It was at that time that he was made aware of his military options, and Gordon opted for the RCAF. He went into an extended period of training, where he settled on being […]
Mahon, Albert
Albert Mahon was born into a large family in south London, England in 1923. He grew up in a working class neighbourhood, where school was not a top priority. Instead Albert went to work, and much of his childhood and early years were spent working a variety of jobs, as well as helping with his […]
Bradley, Tom
Tom Bradley is an American veteran of the Second World War, having served with the 29th Infantry Division in Europe. Tom hails from New Jersey, where he grew up during the Great Depression. When the war came, he was in school in Massachusetts, expecting to go on to college. But the government had other ideas, […]
Cameron, Ray
Ray Cameron is a veteran of the Merchant Navy. When the war came he was living in Lindsay, Ontario, where he had been on the farm and had worked on the Great Lakes as a seaman. When Norway was pulled into the war, the Norwegian merchant marine made the decision to recruit in Canada, and […]
Fish, Lawrence
Lawrence Fish was born in Crowle, England in 1923. He was the eldest of four siblings. In school he went to seventh grade and then started to work in farming and driving trucks. Most of his childhood was spent working as well as helping with his siblings. In 1941, once he was old enough to enlist, […]
Dennis, Scott
At a young age Major Dennis was interested in aviation. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Cadets and obtained his glider pilot license and private pilot license while in high school in Halifax, Nova Scotia. After attending university at Mount Saint Vincent University, he obtained his commercial pilot license and flew as a flight instructor […]
LaJeunesse, Jeremy
Major LaJeunesse was born in Timmins, Ontario and graduated from Sudbury’s Laurentian University prior to enlisting in the Canadian Forces in 2003. In 2009, he was deployed to Afghanistan as part of OP Athena. In February of 2016, Major LaJeunesse visited Crestwood as part of a delegation from the Canadian Forces College, where he was […]
Harvey, Frederic
Major Harvey has over 20 years of experience in the Canadian Armed Forces, having joined the reserves in 1992. While serving in the reserves and completing his university education, Major Harvey was deployed as a part of Canada’s peacekeeping missions in Haiti (1996) and Bosnia-Herzegovina (1999). In 2000, Maj. Harvey transferred to regular forces as […]