George Scott was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1930. He had a relatively big and nice family. “Everything should be okay, but experience changes people, “ he said. The Holocaust turned him into a reflective, quiet boy, puzzled by many things. He recorded that in 1943, his life started to change. All Jews in Hungary […]
Archives: Oral History Project
Reti, Andy
Andy Reti was born July 16, 1942 in Budapest, Hungary. He is a child survivor from the Shoah. Andy’s father did not survive those terrible years: he was taken to a forced labour battalion and later murdered in Auschwitz Birkenau. Andy, along with his mother and grandparents, survived the horrors of the war through good […]
Lane, Ruth
Ruth Lane grew up in Wales, in the U.K. She was six when World War Two began, and her memories of childhood against the backdrop of wartime restrictions remind us that the war was about much more than the battlefield itself. Ruth recalled the American soldiers stationed nearby, the rationing, the bombing, and the disruptions […]
Carmelly, Felicia
Felicia Carmelly is a Romanian Holocaust survivor currently residing in Toronto. Born in 1932 amidst European anti-Semitism, Felicia faced persecution at the hands of the Green Shirts in Romania. Felicia and her family were taken from their hometown to Transnistria, an area under Romanian governance where Romanian Jews were forced into mass ghettos. Here, she […]
Lipszyc, Rose
Rose Lipszyc was born in 1929 in Lublin, Poland. By all accounts, her life was a good one, full of family and happy memories. All that changed in the early days of the Second World War, when the Nazis invaded. Her family was sent to the ghetto, watching as the liquidations took their neighbours away. […]
Adler, Amek
Amek Adler was born April 20, 1928 in Lublin, Poland, and he grew up in Lodz. After Nazi occupation in 1939, his family escaped to Warsaw and then to Radom. In 1943, Amek was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and from there he survived the brutality of a series of work camps. The end of the war […]
King, Bill
Bill King served in the Canadian Forces from 1951-56. Bill grew up in Nova Scotia, against the backdrop of WW2. He remembers well the sacrifices of other family members who served in that conflict, and he considers them the real veterans. Bill’s service coincided with the Korean War, and although he did not go to […]
Kon, Freda
Freda (Franka) Kon is from Lodz, Poland. Freda and her family had been a nice, normal life when the tragedy of the Holocaust descended upon them. They were put into the Lodz Ghetto, where they would stay for the next four year, condemned to slave labour and starvation. But as a young woman, in a […]
Gerquest, Peter
Peter Gerquest is from Saddle River, New Jersey, where he was born in 1932 and spent his early years. When it came time to leave that rural community, Peter attended Hamilton College, and it was about that time when his impending military commitments began to affect his plans, with war in Korea underway. Peter was candid […]
Cuccaro, Joe
Joe Cuccaro hails from Plainfield, New Jersey. Born March 21, 1937, he spent his early years growing up against the backdrop of World War Two, though for Joe his earliest memories of boyhood center on the New York Yankees. In the 1950s Joe went on to higher education, and the ROTC became part of his […]
Weiss, Arthur
Arthur Weiss was born in Philadelphia in 1925. Growing up against the backdrop of war, Arthur was singled out by the military for his mathematical prowess. The military was grooming him for a role in the Manhattan Project, but as Arthur recalls, there was a surfeit of physicists by 1945, and with the war winding […]
McLean, Roger
Roger McLean was born in Scituate, Massachusetts. An avid baseball fan and player, he went to Andover and Princeton, and went on to serve as a forward artillery observer in Korea and after the Armistice worked with the local Korean population building a primary school with materials sent from the U.S. He received his discharge […]
Butts, Charles
Charles Butts was born in Woburn, Massachusetts in 1926. He spent his early years on the outskirts of Boston, growing up against the backdrop of the Great Depression. After graduating from high school, Charles attended Middlebury College, as he was given an educational deferment from the draft. He did end up in the U.S. Navy, but […]
Frankel, Miriam
Miriam Frankel was born in Dunajska Streda, Czechoslovakia, in 1927, and raised in Italy. After expulsion from her childhood home in Italy, she was trapped in Hungarian-occupied Czechoslovakia for the next four years. Her father was taken to a forced labour camp; the family was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944. Surviving two additional concentration […]
Wigoda, Ann
Ann Wigoda was born in Berlin, Germany on August 23, 1932. Growing up in the 1930s, she was too young to understand many of the political changes, but as a child she does remember the increasing tensions, in the house and especially with the other children in the neighbourhood. By the middle of the decade […]
Hilf, Magda
Magda Hilf was born in Maly Kevesd, Czechoslovakia, in 1921. Her early years consist of many fond memories, with family and friends and books, all in a rural setting. After 1938’s Munich Accord, the situation changed: when the Hungarians took over her region, the restrictions began. Her father lost his business, and he and so […]
Earle, Roy
Roy Earle was born in 1924 in Montclair, New Jersey, and he grew nearby in the city of Bloomfield, where he graduated from high school in 1942. Knowing he would soon be drafted, he made the decision to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps in late 1942, eleven months after the U.S. joined the conflict. […]
Barker, Carl
Carl Barker is a lifelong Mainer. Born June 26, 1928, he grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression, which he recounts through some fascinating specific memories, including that he slept in a drawer. As his father was a grocer, the family did not go hungry, but Carl remembers that he did not see […]
Jeffery, Fred
Fred Jeffery is a lifelong Mainer. Born in 1918, he grew up in South Portland, and when World War Two began, he was able to graduate from college before entering the Coast Guard Academy. Unhappy with his experiences there, he decided to try something new, making the decision to enter the Marine Corps. Training took him to […]
Lane, Mark
Mark Lane was born in 1929 in eastern Czechoslovakia, in the village of Olenovo. In 1939, with the division of the country, the area was ceded to Hungary. The family began to struggle, dealing with the rising anti-Semitism and the restrictions that began to be imposed on their daily lives. In the spring of 1944, […]
Mandel, Joe
Joe Mandel is a Holocaust survivor from the central European region of Ruthenia. When Joe was born in 1924, Ruthenia was part of Czechoslovakia, but following Chamberlain’s failed “Peace in our time” bid and the following wartime border changes, Joe’s town was ceded to Hungary (it has also at various times been part of Germany, […]
Protected: Shafai, Roshan
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Eaves, Joanna
Joanna Eaves was born on February 17, 1943. She grew up with her mother, Nora, her sister, Liz, and her brother, Charles. Unfortunately for most of her toddler years, her father, John, was off fighting in World War II. John’s position in the war was a Maratha Light Infantry of the Indian army. During the war, Joanna’s father was […]
Gregerson, Pete
Pete Gregerson served in Canada’s armed forces in both World War Two and Korea. Born and raised in the west end of Toronto, Pete grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression, attending public school and then Central Tech, where he studied to be a draftsman. Pete enlisted in the army as WW2 came […]
Jull, Megan
Megan Jull is the Pastoral Associate at All Saints’ Kingsway Anglican Church and is a postulant for ordination in the Diocese of Toronto. This means that she is in the midst of the training and formation required to become a priest in the Anglican Church. She hosts a popular blog where she posts a collection […]
Goldie, Tom
Major T.J. (Tom) Goldie was born in Halifax, NS. After completion of high school he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and enjoyed several years serving as an Airframe Technician maintaining aircraft before being selected in 1999 for a military sponsored university training plan through which he completed his studies toward a Bachelor of […]
Matheson, Dan
Major Daniel Matheson is a current member of the Canadian Forces, who hails from Indian Harbour, Nova Scotia, a small fishing community just outside Halifax. He joined the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) in 1997 right out of High School under the Regular Officer Training Plan and attended Royal Military College in St Jean-sur-Richelieu, QC and […]
Richard, Cliff
Major Richard was born in Edmonton, Alberta in 1976. As a rural kid, he played the mandatory minor hockey until age 14 when he joined the Air Cadets and became hooked. He joined the Canadian Armed Forces as an Artillery Officer in 1994 under the Regular Officer Training Plan. He completed a degree in mechanical […]
LeFresne, Tony
LCdr LeFresne enrolled in the Canadian Armed Forces as a MARS (Maritime Surface-Subsurface) Officer in June 1997. After 4 Years at the Royal Military College (RMC), he graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Military and Strategic Studies and was posted to Victoria, BC to complete bridge officer training. Upon completion of this training, LCdr LeFresne […]
Shontaler, Jim
Jim Shontaler was born in the Canadian west, growing up in the difficult days of the Great Depression. As there were some family problems, Jim spent many of his early years in an orphanage. With the war underway and with no firm direction before him, he joined up as soon as he was able, heading […]