Ellin Bessner's blog

Why the Rhine River town of Bacharach, Germany is a dark spot in Jewish history: more than Reisling and medieval castles

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Thu, 06 Jul 2017 03:00:00 +0000

Wernerkapelle, in Bacharach, Germany (Ellin Bessner/photo)

No. 43 Langstrasse, Bacharach, Germany: last home of Willi and Emma Keller, siblings, deported by the Nazis to Theresienstadt in 1942, where they died. (Ellin Bessner/photo)

My front page story published in the Canadian Jewish News July 6, 2017.
Here is the link to the online story.

A moving van was blocking the narrow, cobblestone lane outside our hotel in the quaint town of Bacharach, Germany, on the banks of the Rhine River. A white-haired truck driver saw that I was struggling to squeeze between his parked truck and the walls of the building, trying to heave my suitcase over its giant wheels, in order to reach my car. He stopped what he was doing, smiled and helped me lift my bag. After stowing the luggage in the trunk, I headed back to the hotel to settle the bill. That’s when I noticed two brass plaques embedded in the street in front of the truck.

I got goosebumps.

“Willi Keller, Born 1894, Deported 1942, Died in Thereseinstadt,” read one. “Emma Keller, Born 1893, Deported 1942, Died in Thereseinstadt,” stated the other.

I knew immediately that they were stolperstein, or “stumbling stones,” which are part of a European commemorative art project to document the last known residences of victims of the Holocaust, both Jewish and non. Willi Keller, a 48-year-old bachelor, had been a tailor, and his sister, Emma, 49, had also never married and lived with her brother until July 27, 1942, when they were deported.

Seeing the stolperstein outside my hotel surprised me, but also made me shiver, because their presence completely changed the way I felt about that picturesque tourist town that’s known for its medieval castles on the hilltops above the Rhine River, its local Riesling wines and for the restaurants and brasseries filled with cyclists, hikers and other tourists like myself.

I shivered because seeing the evidence of anti-Semitism under my feet also made me see the town’s most famous landmark in another light. In 1289, 700 years before the Nazis had rounded up the Keller siblings to take them to their deaths, Bacharach had built a shrine, known as the Wernerkapelle, to honour the death of a local teenager. Its ruins lie steps away from the hotel we were staying at.

We had visited the ruins the night before. The town had been the scene of some of the most famous anti-Jewish attacks of the Middle Ages. One in particular, in 1287, was linked to the murder of a local teenager named Werner of Oberwessel. The story has it that when the body of this poor young fellow was discovered, the Jews were blamed, because he had been working for a Jewish family. His death happened just before Easter, and the old story of Jews using his blood in their ceremonies led to retaliation against Jewish people in Bacharach and elsewhere. In Bacharach alone, over two-dozen local Jews were killed.

The Catholic Church eventually made Werner a saint, and a shrine to honour him was built in Bacharach. The shrine was destroyed in 1689 by falling rocks, when the French blew up the 12th-century Stahleck Castle, which is just up the hill from the townsite. In the mid-1800s, the Jewish-born German poet Heinrich Heine wrote the novel, Der Rabbi von Bacharach, about the Werner incident and the continued persecution of Jews living along the Rhine. Today, the ruins of the Wernerkapelle are considered Bacharach’s main attraction.

We had taken photos there the evening before, but I hadn’t fully understood what I had seen until I did some online research. A plaque on the gates of the ruin describes the site as “a unique example of German High Gothic architecture” and “the finest and most noble of the ruins in Germany.” But the plaque also hinted at the site’s darker origins: the Werner murder and the “violent riots against the Jewish citizens” that followed.

The inscription explains that in 1996, after a series of structural restorations, the Catholic Church dedicated the site as a place of “brotherly respect between Christians and Jews.” It also quotes a prayer by Pope John XXIII, asking for forgiveness:

“We recognize today that many centuries of blindness covered our eyes so that we do not see anymore the beauty of your Chosen People and we do not recognize in their faces the features of our firstborn brother. We recognize that Kain’s sign is on our forehead. In the course of centuries our brother Abel was lain in the blood that we shed, and he shed tears which we have caused as we forgot your love. Forgive us the curse which we wrongfully affixed to the name of the Jews. Forgive us, that for the second time, we nailed you to the cross. Because we did not know what we had done.”

During the Second World War, the Stahlbeck Castle, now a popular youth hostel and restaurant, was used as a detention centre for youthful opponents of the Nazi regime, and as an indoctrination camp for young Germans. Even Deputy führer Rudolph Hess visited the castle to supervise the work. Meanwhile, in the town below, many of the remaining Jewish residents were killed.

The Keller siblings aren’t the only local Jews to be commemorated with stolperstein in Bacharach. Their plaques were installed during a ceremony in 2014.. They honour an elderly woman, Antonie Herzberg, who was killed in Treblinka at age 80, and Heinrich Pfaff, a watchmaker and First World War veteran who was suffering from shell shock and was gassed by the Nazis at the sanatorium where he was being treated in 1941, according to local newspaper reports. A fifth Holocaust victim, Marie Louise Jeiter, had a stolperstein installed in 2015 outside the home where she lived before she, too, was deported to an institution and euthanized in 1944, because the Nazis considered her mentally ill.

After learning all this, I couldn’t wait to leave Bacharach. The moving van driver asked me how long I was staying in Germany and I told him, truthfully, that I was flying home to Canada that day.

He looked down at the stolperstein and admitted that he was very worried about the growing nationalistic sentiments in Europe and the anti-immigrant feelings around the world. He said that he feared bad things could happen – again. He told me how lucky I was to be living in Canada. He thought it was a beautiful country and said that “your prime minister is a good boy.”

My son, Alex, had been on a Birthright trip to Israel just a week or so before he joined me on this road trip down the Rhine, and he had been wearing his black Birthright-Taglit Canada Israel Experience T-shirt on the day we arrived in Bacharach. Long before I had learned about the town’s dark history, I had urged Alex to change and wear something else that day, because I was afraid that the Star of David on the T-shirt might bring us unwanted attention, or even lead to violence.

But now, I am fiercely glad that the Jewish symbol had been proudly worn in this tiny corner of the world, unknowingly and defiantly saying to the haters, “Here we are, back again.” It made me proud of him, and of Canada, which is seen even by the driver of a moving van in one of the prettiest tourist towns in Germany as a beacon of goodness in the face of evil.

A real life Double Threat: two Jewish WWll veterans meet at a tribute breakfast at Crestwood Preparatory College in Toronto

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Wed, 17 May 2017 18:32:00 +0000

Norman Cohen and Lorne Winer (Ellin Bessner/Photo)

Ellin with Norman Cohen and Lorne Winer (photo Joan Cohen)

They both grew up in pre-war Toronto, although one came from the poor neighbourhood known as The Ward, while the other came from a nicer neighbourhood near the Beaches. Both served in the Second World War, and it isn't hard to see why they'd never met: Lt.- Col. Norman Cohen (left) served as a navigator in the RCAF and was posted to England and then to Burma, while Lorne Winer was with the Royal Canadian Artillery and served in England and then through Normandy and Northwestern Europe after D-Day until long after V-E Day.

Cohen and Winer met Tuesday May 16, 2017 in the gymnasium of Crestwood Preparatory School in Toronto, at an appreciation breakfast put on by the amazing history teacher, Scott Masters, and his students. I was honoured to be invited, too. For ten years now, Masters and his classes have done oral history interviews with veterans, and Holocaust survivors, and now are focusing on survivors of Canada's '60s scoop of First Nations children.

Cohen is his '90s, and just retired after a career in the insurance business. Winer, who is just a few years older (99!) keeps busy, too, volunteering with the Royal Canadian Legion and, like Cohen, both granted interviews to the Crestwood students.

They are among the 17, 000 Canadian Jewish men and women who put on a uniform during the Second World War, and whose important stories are now being told. Both veterans are featured prominently in my forthcoming book "Double Threat: Canada's Jews, the Military and WWll" which is being published by New Jewish Press.

Look for it on November 11, 2017 through Amazon.ca, Chapters/Indigo and Target. Preorders are available now.

Norm Cohen and Lorne Winer (Ellin Bessner/photo)

Scott Masters at the microphone

Video from the school's Oral History project

Norman Cohen in the school's video

Norm and his brother Al in uniform

Lorne being interviewed in the Oral History project

Bill Tymchuk with Ellin Bessner.

Bill Tymchk was also at the breakfast. Tymchuk, who is not Jewish, served with the Lake Superior Regiment during WWll. His regiment liberated Vucht, in the fall of 1944. It is an SS-run concentration camp in Southern Holland with a crematorium, which had processed 30,000 people, mainly thousands of Jews, especially children, until their ultimate transport to death camps elsewhere.

Order my New Book here!

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Sun, 12 Feb 2017 21:42:00 +0000

Available Nov. 11, 2017 on Chapters Indigo, Amazon.ca and Amazon.com, and Target.com

Screen capture of Amazon

How to pre-order:

Canadian readers: Indigo Chapters
or
Amazon. ca:

for U.S. orders: https://www.amazon.com/Double-Threat-Canadian-Military-World/dp/1988326044

Kingston's Jewish War Heroes: a Remembrance Day lecture and dinner Friday November 11, 2016 in Kingston, Ontario

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Mon, 07 Nov 2016 23:20:00 +0000

Tickets are still available for the event:

Friday 11^th November 2016

“How Canada’s Jews Fought WWII”

Remembrance Day Service, Shabbat Dinner & Guest Speaker

Kingston Jewish Council (KJC), Queen’s Hillel, and Beth Israel Synagogue Adult Education are pleased to announce a wonderful opportunity to honour and remember our military veterans and all 17,000 plus Canadian Jews who served in WWll, at a special event on Friday, Nov. 11, 2016 at 5:30 p.m.

The evening will start with a Kabbalat Shabbat Service, including a time to honour all Fallen Soldiers. A Shabbat dinner will follow. Professor Ellin Bessner, a journalist and professor of journalism at Centennial College in Toronto, will talk about Kingston’s Jewish War Heroes, and preview her new book “Double Threat: Canada’s Jews, the Military, and WWll”.

This will be a very special evening. We hope you can attend.

For more information, and to reserve a spot, please contact:

Paul Gilmore paul.rina@sympatico.ca or Ian Sarfin at imscatering.consulting@gmail.com

FREE for members of the Canadian Forces in uniform.

$20.00 for adults, $12.50 for students, $10.00 children under 10

Location: Beth Israel Synagogue, 116 Centre Street, Kingston, Ontario K7L 4E6

Payment by Cash or Cheque (made out to KJC) at the door.

"Canadian Jews, the Military, and World War ll: Double Threat". My new book about the 17,000 Jewish Canadians who defeated the Nazis

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Sat, 15 Oct 2016 14:20:00 +0000

The cover /New Jewish Press

Just in time for the 71st anniversary of the end of the Second World War, I am thrilled to announce my new non-fiction book. Double Threat: Canadian Jews, The Military, and World War ll is a journalistic look at the untold stories of the Jewish Canadian men and women who served in uniform during the dark years of the last great war. At least 10 per cent of the Canadian Jewish population answered the call, whether as volunteers or as conscripts. About 450 didn't come back: some lie buried in graveyards from Normandy to Hong Kong, while others have no known final resting place.

Double Threat: Canadian Jews, The Military, and World War ll is the untold story of why so many Jewish Canadians served, what life was like for them as Jews in uniform, and how they confronted antisemitism both at home and abroad while fighting to win the war and liberate their brethren from the horrors of Nazi work camps and death camps.

The book is being published by New Jewish Press, a division of the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto.

“He died so Jewry should suffer no more.”

These words on a Canadian Jewish soldier’s tombstone in Normandy inspired the author to explore the role of Canadian Jews in the war effort. As PM Mackenzie King wrote in 1947, Jewish servicemen faced a “double threat” — they were not only fighting against Fascism but for Jewish survival. At the same time, they encountered widespread antisemitism and the danger of being identified as Jews if captured. Bessner conducted hundreds of interviews and extensive archival research to paint a complex picture of the 17,000 Canadian Jews — about 10 per cent of the Jewish population in wartime Canada — who chose to enlist, including future Cabinet minister Barney Danson, future game-show host Monty Hall, and comedians Wayne and Shuster. Added to this fascinating account are Jews who were among the so-called “Zombies” — Canadians who were drafted, but chose to serve at home — the various perspectives of the Jewish community, and the participation of Canadian Jewish women.

The cover was adapted from a 1943 propaganda poster issued by the Canadian Wartime Information board.

Double Threat is due out November 11, 2017.

Hard copies are available for consumers to buy at Indigo/Chapters, and also through Amazon, Target, and also as an ebook.

For booksellers/retailers/librarians who want to order copies, the purchasing information is below.

Ellin Bessner is a journalist and a professor of journalism at Centennial College in Toronto.

320 pages • 6 X 9 with photographs
Paper • $26	9781988326047
epub • $10	9781988326054
HISTORY/ Jewish / Canada / Military

General inquiries

New Jewish Press
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ebessner@gmail.com

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Enlisted because his friends had died in Dieppe: Toronto veteran Larry Levy dies

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Sat, 23 Jul 2016 02:10:00 +0000

Larry Levy, April 2016 (Photo by Ellin Bessner)

I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Larry twice this spring at his Toronto home, where he gave me some amazing stories about his World War ll service, being Jewish in the military, even about a brothel, and the first open-air Jewish service held inside Germany in March 1945. He was a sweet, and energetic Jewish war veteran. I was writing about him on Friday morning and holding his file in my hand when the Legion emailed me to let me know he had passed away. Beshert. I am only sorry he didn't live to see his stories in my forthcoming book.

Benjamin's Park Memorial Chapel - The following is a link to the service of: The Late Larry Levy

BENJAMINSPARKMEMORIALCHAPEL.CA

Canadian Dieppe Raid Veteran says it was supposed to be just another drill.

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Thu, 26 May 2016 03:16:00 +0000

Miriam and Hon. Col. David Lloyd Hart, MM with Ellin Bessner
(Ellin Bessner photo)

Canadian Jewish war hero David Hart and his wife will be winging their way to Dieppe, France with Veterans Affairs Canada in August, to help mark the 75th anniversary of the 1942 Dieppe Raid. I interviewed a 99-year-old veteran in 2016 for my forthcoming book. (Hon.) Col. was on a landing craft just off the beach from Dieppe operating a radio wireless set. The then-Sergeant with the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals was credited with saving 100 Canadian commandos, who hadn't received the signal to retreat. It had been sent from the raid headquarters ship offshore but they were too far away from the action. So he relayed the message again, and got through, amidst the murderous German gunfire on that terrible August 19 day. Hart and his wife Miriam still live in Montreal, in their own home, and were gracious to give up part of their Saturday to meet with me. His eye-witness recollections will be in Chapter 5 of my book "Double Threat" about Canada's Jews in Uniform in World War ll. Note the wartime photo of Hart in the background. It shows his citation for winning the Military Medal, which he picked up from the King at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace in late 1942. Watch this wartime newsreel of the event. You can see Hart, and his two brothers, at about 8 minutes into the video.

Decorated Jewish Canadian World War ll doctor dies in Toronto: the pathologist who was also a hero of Sogel

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Thu, 12 May 2016 14:04:00 +0000

Dr. Nathan Kaufman, MBE and MiD, (courtesy Benjamin's Park Memorial Chapel)

One of the most highly decorated Canadian Jewish medical officers during the Second World War has died. Captain Nathan Kaufman, a Montreal native, was named a Member of the Order of the British Empire and was mentioned in despatches for his actions in Germany in April 1945. He went on to become a famous pathologist and was professor emeritus at Queen's University. He died Wednesday in Toronto, in his 100th year. Captain Kaufman and a Toronto dentist , Captain Harry Jolley, were tending to wounded men in an Canadian army medical field dressing station when it came under attack. Both unarmed Jewish officers put down their stethoscopes and picked up discarded weapons to fight off the German paratroopers and civilian snipers in Sogel. Funeral/internment is Sunday in Kingston. (Photo courtesy Benjamin's Park Memorial Chapel)

http://www.benjaminsparkmemorialchapel.ca/ServiceDetails.aspx?snum=132543&fg=0

A lost Winnipeg airman's WWll logbook is now back with his family, seventy three years after his death. I helped.

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Mon, 18 Apr 2016 00:23:00 +0000

It was sent back to the grieving father in Winnipeg in 1948. To the wrong address. That's why Samuel Jacob Donen's RCAF log book went back to Ottawa, and was placed in the Jewish airman's military files, where it sat for nearly seven decades. The family never knew it existed. I found it. On the eve of Remembrance Day, 2015. Here is the story.

Thanks to Bernie Bellan at the Jewish Post and News in Winnipeg for publishing it this week.

http://www.jewishpostandnews.ca/features/2118-2-stories-of-jewish-manitoba-airmen-killed-in-wwii

Larry Donen, holding his uncle's Log Book.

Samuel Jacob Donen, in uniform. (Ellin Bessner photo)

Donen grave in Accra, Ghana.

Last page of log book. (Ellin Bessner photo)

http://www.jewishpostandnews.ca/features/2118-2-stories-of-jewish-manitoba-airmen-killed-in-wwii

Writing the Wrong: What Canada should know about the Jewish servicemen and women in WW2

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 00:00:00 +0000

It's been one year exactly since I received the green light from my college, Centennial College, in Toronto, to take a year Sabbatical in order to research and write my book about the untold stories of Canada's Jews in Uniform in the Second World War. The letter came from the Professional Development Leave people in late February 2015. Hard to believe nine months have passed! But some 250 interviews + seven cities + 15 archives + 2 FOI requests + tens of thousands of words later (and counting) + six speaking engagements + 60 SDHC memory cards, I am well into the manuscript.

Centennial College's Centre for Organizational Learning and Teaching
asked me to conduct a webinar about my research so far. If you missed the live broadcast, here is the replay. Don't panic if you see a different person when it starts: she is introducing me. I begin shortly after.

http://bit.ly/1XWkAOm

Speaking to Toronto Jewish veterans Legion Branch 256

Researching at Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada, Winnipeg

Interview with Hy Chud(novsky)

Skype interview with Bill McAllister

Interview Elaine Zadjeman

The Watchmaker of Normandy: Murray Jacobs

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Wed, 25 Nov 2015 15:35:00 +0000

Murray Jacobs, (Ellin Bessner photo).

I had the honour to interview Murray Jacobs last December, 2014 at his Toronto home as part of my research into the contribution of Canadian Jewish servicemen and women in the Second World War.
Murray was a former president of the Royal Canadian Legion #256 General Wingate branch in Toronto. He was a tireless campaigner to raise money to improve the lives of today's surviving veterans and to honour the legacies of those Jewish servicemen who didn't come home.
Murray was a trained watchmaker from Toronto who was called upon to use his specialized trade in Normandy during the war in the battle that begun Aug. 7/8, 1944 called Operation Totalize. His commanding officer Lt.-Gen. Guy G. Simonds decided to get the workshop men to make it safer for infantry to get into the fight. He asked Jacobs and his team to turn 75 Canadian Priest tanks into so-called "Kangaroos" (or defrocked priests as they were called): take out the gun turret and reinforce the sides and voila you have a safer way to transport men into battle. They did the conversion work in three days in an orchard under the blazing August sun. These were the first use of armoured personnel carriers for the Canadian infantry in the field. And those men who rode in them suffered fewer casualties then the infantry who walked. The Kangaroos were used in the fighting to close the Falaise Gap. Murray also was a proud Jew who wore a prayer shawl under his uniform. He actually had two of these, because his father made a pair so he could wear one at all times (if the second was dirty or in the wash). He told me he was the only watchmaker the Canadian army had in Normandy. So sorry to hear of his passing.

(http://www.perthregiment.org/rguide2_images/carriers/2.jpg)

On Wednesday, November 18, 2015 at home. Murray Jacobs beloved husband of Millie Jacobs. Loving father and father- in-law of Tami and Joel Kligman, Nancy and Marty Frankel, and Howard and Chris Jacobs. Dear brother and brother-in-law of Arlene and the late Sheldon Miller, and the late Bess and Bill Nowack, Kay and Moe Greenbaum, Morris and Ethel Jacobs, and Art and Sophie Jacobs. Devoted grandfather of Sarah and Brian, Joe and Julie, Sabra and Dan, and Dylan. Devoted great- grandfather of Jesse, Alexander, and Ben. Interment Jewish War Veteran's section at Mt. Sinai Memorial Park. Memorial donations may be made to the Murray Jacobs Memorial Fund c/o the Benjamin Foundation, 3429 Bathurst Street, Toronto, M6A 2C3, 416-780-0324 or www.benjamins.ca

Jews in Hong Kong to pay tribute to Canadian soldiers killed there in the Second World War

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Sat, 07 Nov 2015 13:51:00 +0000

Sai Wan War Cemetery, Hong Kong
(courtesy Commonwealth War Graves Commission website)

Timing is everything. And the Internet is a miraculous instrument. And both are about to connect a Canadian Jewish community in Hong Kong with the surviving next-of-kin of four Canadian servicemen who were killed in the Second World War there.

I am just finished writing the first draft of my chapter about Hong Kong, for my new book about the Canadian Jewish servicemen who were killed in the Second World War.

This week I interviewed a Toronto businessman. We met for a coffee at What a Bagel, on Bathurst Street in Thornhill. I had asked for an interview because his father was one of four Canadian Jewish servicemen who lost their lives in the battle for Hong Kong, in 1941. He had just marked the 74th Yahrzeit (anniversary of his father's death). He was a baby when his father David "Morris" Schrage died.

Then, I received an email from a Canadian banker, Garry Stein from Hong Kong. He is a long time Hong Kong resident and a member of their synagogue, the United Jewish Congregation of Hong Kong. He wrote to me in response to a note I'd placed last year on a website devoted to all things Old Hong Kong. It is called gwulo I had asked for help looking for the descendants of a Sgt. Robert Macklin. He was also one of the four Canadian Jewish Hong Kong casualties.

Macklin was with the British Army. After the invasion, he was a POW for about a year, and, like so many hundreds of other Canadian POWs, suffered inhumane treatment. He died in late 1942.

Also thanks to the Internet, and specifically to gwulo.com, I was contacted by the grandson of Robert Macklin's best friend. He told me an incredible story of how their family has been honouring the Canadian soldier all these years. You'll have to read all about it when my book comes out.

There are two other Canadian Jewish servicemen who were lost in the Battle of Hong Kong. They came on the troop ship carrying the 1,970 members of C Force to shore up the British Garrison against a possible Japanese invasion in the fall of 1941. Max Berger from Sarnia, Ontario, was with the Royal Canadian Army Service Corps.

And there is Hymie Greenberg, of Spedden, Alberta. He was with the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals. He is buried in another cemetery, the Stanley Military Cemetery.

Now back to Garry Stein.

Mr. Stein wrote to tell me that on November 11, and again on December 6, 2015, he and others will be at a Remembrance service at Sai Wan. The December 6th one is run by the Canadian Consulate. He will say Kaddish for the Canadians and the other Jewish casualties.

And he wanted me to tell the relatives of the four Canadians that '"these souls have not been forgotten and are visited and have Kaddish recited for them on appropriate occasions."

Alistaire Hayman, a psychotherapist in Hong Kong, tells me they take school children from the synagogue's Hebrew School on war cemetery visits: "to tell them of the war and the emphasis being placed on Jews being part of the fabric of Hong Kong and standing in the front line of its defence. Clear mention also of the fact that Commonwealth soldiers (Canadian) freshly out of basic training made the journey to Hong Kong and within a few days lost their lives in the defence of a country, possibly never before knowing of its existence."

Mark Ellison, a management consultant, and the rabbi of the UJCHK Stanton Zamek, also do their part in sharing the stories of the Jewish casualties.

Two battalions -- from the Royal Rifles of Canada and the Winnipeg Grenadiers -- and also Headquarters personnel, embarked from Canada on October 27, 1941, and sailed into Hong Kong on November 16. The Japanese invaded on December 8, and the former British colony surrendered on Christmas Day. About 550 C Force volunteers died in battle or in captivity. The rest were prisoners of war.

I will be in Ottawa for the Remembrance Day ceremonies November 11, and will think of these four Canadian servicemen and of their families and friends, and will especially think of the wonderful people in Hong Kong's Jewish community who regularly perform this good deed (mitzvah).

The day two Toronto soldiers based in Iceland attend a unique Yom Kippur service during the Second World War

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Wed, 09 Sep 2015 22:41:00 +0000

Photo by Ellin Bessner

A great surprise this week in the Canadian Jewish News edition of September 10, 2015 devoted to the Jewish New Year. On page 6, this photo from the Ontario Jewish Archives Blankenstein Family collection shows a group of Jewish Allied servicemen and the caption in the CJN say it is Rosh Hashanah in Iceland, and it describes the event as the first service of its kind ever held on the island.

Well, that isn't the whole story.

This photo has taken on a life of its own since I first saw a copy of it online last year, while researching for my book about the Canadian Jewish servicemen and women who were killed during the Second World War.

Here is what I know about that photo, and some of the people in it.

1. It was taken in Reykjavik on Saturday, October 12, 1940, on Yom Kippur, not on Rosh Hashanah, by a very famous Icelandic photographer named Sigurður Guðmundsson. I know he took that photo thanks to an Icelandic researcher and historian Vilhjálmur Örn Vilhjálmsson, who has been searching for the men in the photo since 1994, and contacted me earlier this year. You can read his blog post here.

2. I know there were at least two Toronto Jewish servicemen in the photo, and both became casualties of the infamous military raid on Dieppe on August 19, 1942: On the extreme left, in the middle row, is Pvt. Lionel Cohen, who I wrote about in my last post. He enlisted as soon as the war broke out in 1939, and was with the Royal Regiment as a commando. He left behind a widow, Rose.

On the other side of the photo on the right, in the middle row, the second from the right, is L/Cpl. Meyer Bubis, also of Toronto, also with the Royal Regiment. He, too, enlisted just when the war broke out in September 1939, and after training in Canada, was shipped over to Iceland on "The Empress of Australia" in mid-June, 1940.

3. Meyer Bubis sent a print of that Yom Kippur photo back home to his father in Toronto, with a note on the back saying it was the first such service ever held in Iceland. This photo is now at the Ontario Jewish Archives, donated by Bubis's surviving sisters, and you can see it online here.

Here is a screen cap of his note, courtesy Ontario Jewish Archives:

4. The story of this Yom Kippur service is a fascinating Icelandic "Saga", as Vilhjalmsson calls it. Here is what he says:

After the British occupied Iceland, Allied Jewish servicemen began to look for "landsmen" or other Jews, to hold services and observe religious holidays. There were also a handful of Jewish refugees from the war living in Reykjavik at the time, and so efforts were made through the British Protestant Chaplain to find a place to hold Yom Kippur services that year. At first, the military offered them a chapel in an old city cemetery. There was even an invitation drawn up, and sent out to the Jews in the Royal Regiment. Lionel Cohen got one and sent it home to a friend in Canada. Here is what it looks like.

Courtesy Virtual War Memorial, Veterans Affairs Canada.

According to Vilhjamsson in a piece for the Jewish Political Studies Review, in 2004, the organizer, author Hendrik Ottosson, thought that having the service in a cemetery was insulting, so he managed to find a better spot at the Good Templars' Lodge. Despite having no rabbi, Ottosson and his wife, who was a Jewish refugee, located a Torah and two prayer shawls, and spiffed the place up a little to look like a proper chapel. And they held services on Yom Kippur Eve and twice the next day. The photo session happened just before the 25 worshippers broke their fast.

Vilhjamsson says it was the first Jewish service ever held in Iceland, and the first non-Christian one on the island since the year 1000 A.D.

5. Both Bubis and Cohen left Iceland with their regiment for England not long after the High Holidays, in late October 1940. Two years later, both would be dead, participating in the Dieppe raids. The Royal Regiment landed a little east of Dieppe, at Puys, while dawn was breaking, and the Germans saw them, and mowed them down. The Regiment lost over 500 men that day, half killed, half taken prisoner. While Cohen is buried in the Canadian War Cemetery in Dieppe, Bubis was declared missing, until Canada declared him officially dead in November, 1942. He is buried at Dunkirk, France.

6. Meyer Bubis was 27. Lionel Cohen was 31.

Dieppe anniversary: a milestone in the search for Canadian Jewish servicemen killed during the Second World War

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 01:50:00 +0000

It is fitting, in so many ways, that this week marked the 73rd anniversary of the disastrous Allied raid on Dieppe, on August 19, 1942.

The Dieppe commemoration comes just as my formal work sabbatical officially begins from my job as a journalism professor at Centennial College in Toronto.

During this academic year, I am so grateful to be able to finish researching, and begin writing my new book about the 450 Canadian Jewish men and women who died in uniform during the Second World War.

All I need is a publisher!

And help from the public: please contact me if you know anyone who should be included in the book. ebessner@gmail.com

Full disclosure: I've actually been doing this during my spare time for the past 15 months. And really, I've been working towards this day since 2011. That's when I visited the Normandy grave of Bombardier George Meltz, 25, from Toronto, with its Star of David, and the inscription "He died so Jewry shall suffer no more." It's what started this journey to know who he was.

So far, of the 450, I've tracked down and interviewed about 80 next of kin or people who knew them: including Isabella Meltz in Toronto, his niece. From Vancouver, I've spoken with Flying Officer Clifford Shnier's brother, Max Shnier, and from San Diego, I interviewed Cpt. Jacob Mandel's niece and name sake, Jackie Adler.

Although I didn't know it until last summer, I, too, had someone in my own family who was lost.

/Ellin Bessner photo.

In the Canadian Jewish Congress 1947 publication "Canadian Jews in World War 11, Volume 11, Casualties", I discovered the photo and short write up about my great-Aunt Dorothy Lieff's brother.

Sgt. Jack Brovender, originally from Timmins, Ontario, was killed along with his five-man crew, on a training flight over the Lake District of England in 1942, when his Wellington bomber crashed.

And, I've, unfortunately, been making a lot of those people sad.

Thanks to the Internet, and my primary source research at archives in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal, I often know more then they do about what happened to their siblings, friends, or husbands.

Here's what happened when I interviewed Aneta Chernin in her lovely Halifax home, overlooking the "Arm" in June, to talk about her sister, Section Officer Rose Goodman, of the RCAF Women's Division. The only Jewish woman killed in uniform in the war, Goodman died on a wintry January night in 1943, in an Air Force plane crash near Lethbridge, Alberta.

What I told Chernin about why her sister was on that plane, I'll save for the book.

"She should have lived," Chernin said, her eyes distant, after I shared with her what I'd found about the accident, in the files at the Library and Archives of Canada, in Ottawa.

Ellin Bessner and Aneta Chernin, after the interview, Halifax, June 2015.

As best-selling author and my dear colleague Ted Barris often tells our journalism students when we teach them how to write an obituary, an obituary isn't a story about how the person died. It is a story of how the person lived. Sometimes it is the final time the person's name will appear in print.

And that's what my book could be, too.

The stories of these 450 Canadians. How they lived. Who they loved. Where they worked. And where they came from. And yes, of course, there has to be a bit about how they died.

It's a story about Canadian immigration: like Zave Brown, from North Bay, who had to write part of his letters home in Yiddish, because his mother, like many of the parents, was born outside Canada. Many came from Russia, Romania, Austria, England, and Poland.

It's a story about growing up during the Depression: where David "Tevie" Devor, the middle of ten kids from St. Catharines, left school in Grade 7 to work.

It's a story about duty: when war ace Flying Officer William Henry Nelson gave up his leave to pilot his plane one more time after the Battle of Britain, and was the first Canadian Jew to win a Distinguished Flying Cross.

It's a story about bravery: how Moses Hurwitz, the Lachine hockey player who turned down a tryout with the Bruins to become a twice-decorated tank commander, capturing German soldiers, as legend has it, with a wounded arm and his fierce moustache.

It's a story about a need to stop Hitler and save their Jewish relatives in Europe.

That last one is the motivation for many of the men in the book. Including Michael Jacobs, the Yale-educated son of S.W. Jacobs, the second Jew elected to the House of Commons. And Joe Gertel, a fur worker from the Jewish ghetto in Montreal, who "had a score to settle" with Hitler. And Communist and union leader Dick Steele, from Toronto, who went from going to prison for opposing the war to holding classes for his Governor General's Foot Guards about why they had to hate and beat "the Nazi vermin".

After the war was over, Prime Minister Mackenzie King thanked the 17,000 Canadian Jews who served in the military between 1939-1945, saying that for them, the war against Hitler was a "double threat". Not only to their liberty and democracy, but it was a threat to their very existence as a race.

I thought that might make a very good title for the book. Double Threat.

Finally, one more word abut the anniversary of Dieppe. About a dozen Canadian Jews lost their lives in that battle.

Which is how, 73 years ago, a Toronto woman named Rose Cohen would become a widow. Her tall, handsome husband, Lionel Cohen, was in the insurance business. He had enlisted right after war was declared, in September 1939. They'd married two months later. The lower photo belongs to Rose's son Jerry Richmond, seen immediately below. His father, was Rose's second husband, who was also a veteran.

Jerry Richmond, with Lionel Cohen's Honour Roll from the City Of Toronto, August 17, 2015, Toronto.

Lionel and Rose Cohen, in happier times, photo courtesy of Jerry Richmond.

Cohen was first posted to Iceland in June 1940. While there, he was one of the few Allied servicemen to attend the island's first-ever Yom Kippur services, held under the auspices of the British forces, with just two prayer shawls, and attended by a handful of Jewish refugees. You can see a photo of that event taken by a local photographer, now in possession of the Ontario Jewish Archives in Toronto.

Soon after the High Holidays, at the end of October 1940, Cohen embarked for England and two years of special commando training with the Royal Regiment of Canada.

Cohen was among the nearly one dozen Canadian Jewish infantrymen to be killed at Dieppe. Meyer Bubis, who was also at the Iceland holiday service, died of wounds weeks later. Lunch counter owner Murray Bleeman was brought back to England for a solemn burial August 24, 1942 with top Canadian military brass in attendance.

If I've whetted your appetite for more, that means this book is something people might buy. As I begin my sabbatical year to complete my own mission of tribute, I hope you follow me on this journey.

Any D-Day veterans are eligible for France's Legion of Honour but hurry! Deadline in July.

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Wed, 24 Jun 2015 17:13:00 +0000

Please help spread the word! Veuillez porter la bonne parole !
Posted by Centre Juno Beach / Juno Beach Centre on Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Reposting of this article in the Ottawa Citizen with instructions on how to get the medal for any Canadian veterans who participated in the D-Day landings.

Calling All Canadian D-Day veterans

How a Montreal radio show host discovered his father's rescuer in the Second World War

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Mon, 25 May 2015 14:34:00 +0000

Leslie Lutsky is a Montreal radio show host, on Radio Centreville, and also works as a tour guide taking visitors around the historic places relevant to Montreal's Jewish heritage. He also spends time at the Canadian Jewish Congress Archives, located in the basement of a Concordia University building in Montreal.

That's where I met him, last summer, while I was researching for my new book about Canadian Jewish servicemen and women who were killed in uniform in the Second World War.

One day, the director of the archives, Janice Rosen, introduced us, and Leslie told me that his own father had been in the war, and had been wounded. I immediately looked up his father's name in the Congress casualty lists, and there he was, Moses Lutsky, on page 104. The short entry reads:

Guardsman Moses Lutsky, of Montreal, was reported wounded in action in France on September 18, 1944. He enlisted in the army in June 1940, and went overseas in 1942. Lutsky was repatriated aboard the British hospital ship Aba in November, 1944. Born in 1921, Gdsmn. Lutsky is the son of Mr. and Mrs. J Lutsky of 3705 Park Avenue. He is a member of the Y.M.H.A. A brother, Louis Lutsky, served with the R.C.O.C. in Italy.

And there is a small photo of a non-wounded, smiling, 20-something Moe Lutsky, posing for the military's official photographers in a photo taken, I assume, well before he went overseas.

Last summer, Leslie told me a little about his father: Moe had lost both his feet during the war. But Leslie also told me that his father had not really talked about his war experiences. Then Leslie invited me to do an interview for his weekly Saturday morning radio show, "Jewish Digest" on Radio Centreville, about my research. We weren't able to schedule the interview then, and we lost touch.

A few weeks ago, I was reading Mark Zuehlke's book "Breakout from Juno", and nearly fell off my chair because on page 328, Zuehlke talks about the Grenadier Guards battles in France, and how they came under heavy German fire near Point 195 on August 10, 1944, during the Canadian Army's efforts to close the Falaise Gap and cut off the retreating Germans. It was part of Operation Totalize, two months after the D-Day landings.

Breakout from Juno Page 328-329

The author tells the story of what happened to Guardsman Moe Lutsky and the attack on his Sherman tank.

According to Zuehlke's research, a "shell tore into Sgt. John Henry Andrew's Sherman and he ordered the crew out. As Andrews turned to run, he heard Guardsman M. Lutsky crying from inside the tank. Climbing back in, Andrews say his gunner had both fleet blown off. Andrews lifted Lutsky out, lowering him to the ground. Kneeling beside the flaming wreckage, Andrews wrapped a tourniquet around each stump to stem the gushing blood. Then he carried Lutsky to an improvised aid post on the hill. Andrews stayed there the rest of the day giving medical aid to the wounded. He was awarded a Military Medal."

A quick Internet search uncovered a blog post or two by the late Moses Lutsky's niece about her heroic "Uncle Moe", with her recollections of Lutsky determined to learn to walk with his two prosthetic legs, and eventually becoming the "tallest member of Dad's family".

http://promptprose.blogspot.ca/2013/05/remembering-uncle-moshe.html

http://promptprose.blogspot.ca/2013/11/john-henry-andrews-canadian-hero.html

I was excited and at the same time, hesitant, and wasn't sure whether I should contact Leslie after all this time, and tell him what I'd discovered: that his father had been wounded August 10, not Sept. 14, and that a heroic Canadian tank sergeant had saved his father's life and been awarded a medal for his actions. I worried that I would upset Leslie, or that perhaps it wasn't my place to stir up old wounds after so many years.

But after a few days, I did contact Leslie and asked him if he wanted to know. He said he did. And so I sent him the links.

He told me it was very emotional for both him and his sister to read about this, but that they were also excited to try to find their long-lost cousin who had blogged about their father, and that they would also try to track down the soldier who had rescued their father to see if he was still alive.

While the Lutsky children absorbed the precious details of their father's ordeal and subsequent rescue, Leslie and I agreed to meet in Montreal for that long, postponed radio interview. We met at - where else? - the archives of the Canadian Jewish Congress, and spent a lovely half hour recording our chat.

While I didn't spill the beans on-air about Lutsky's own personal journey, what happened with his father's story is something that I am experiencing a lot as I contact and interview the surviving siblings and children and next of kin of the 430+ Canadian Jewish servicemen and women who I am writing about for my book. Often, I know more about their late uncle or aunt and what happened to them, than the families do. For one thing, there was no Facebook, or LinkedIn in the 1940s, and without the luxury of the Internet, there was no way for them to get the War Diaries, or personnel service files of their loved ones.

Now, 70 years later, I do hope that my work not only sheds a light on an important but untold story of the contribution of Canada's Jewish community to the country's war efforts, but also brings some comfort or closure to the 400+ families whose loved ones went off to war and didn't come home.

If you know a Canadian Jewish serviceman who was killed during the Second World War, either at home, or overseas, please get in touch with me via my email at ebessner@gmail.com.

You can hear the podcast of our interview here, courtesy of Radio Centreville.

You can reach Leslie Lutsky for a tour, through his Facebook Page, or Radio Centreville.

Jewish Canadian Second World War hero remembered by Canadians touring Holland for the 70th anniversary of the Liberation

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Sun, 10 May 2015 00:48:00 +0000

Thankful to Ted Barris, author of "The Great Escape" who is leading a tour group through Holland this week, and went to...
Posted by Kaddish for D-Day 2014 on Saturday, May 9, 2015

Canadian veterans return to Italy for 70th anniversary of Second World War campaign

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Sun, 23 Nov 2014 06:17:00 +0000

My story from 1994 about the 50th anniversary veterans' trip to Italy, Montreal Gazette.

News that Canada's Department of Veterans Affairs is taking 28 surviving Canadian veterans to Italy this week has brought back memories of a similar trip I covered for both the CBC and the Canadian Press as a freelance reporter when I was living and working in Italy.

The year was 1994, and I was a reporter based in Rome. Canada sent several busloads of veterans back to Italy for the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of Rome during the Italian Campaign. I spent nearly two weeks traveling from the bottom to the top of Italy with the tour, interviewing the veterans, and the locals, (and sometimes acting as unofficial translator), while filing stories and covering the ceremonies and memorials from Pachino, to Agira, to Cassino through to Ortona.

The 1943 invasion of Italy by the Canadians -- who were often called the "D-Day Dodgers", a moniker that caused great resentment at the time -- saw nearly 6,000 Canadians lose their lives in the fighting to kick the Germans out of Sicily, and root them out of the mainland, including chasing them east into the Adriatic coastal areas of Ravenna and Ortona. It would take the Canadians nearly a year before Rome was liberated, and until 1945 before the generals pulled the Canadians out to fight in other parts of Europe.

The 1994 trip took place in May, when the weather was a lot warmer, and might have been a bit easier for the then-younger veterans to endure. This week's trip is happening not only when they are twenty years older, but also during the late fall season of heavy rain and mudslides, which was nearly the same time of the calendar as when the Canadians became bogged down in house-to-house fighting, deadly mortar attacks, and raids across swollen rivers such as the Moro on the way to Ortona.

The two decades in between the trips also point out another difference, this time, a sad milestone: in 1994, there were nearly 60 veterans on the trip. This year, just 28.

As I was a Rome-based reporter, veterans department officials from Ottawa weren't aware that I was going to cover their trip, which I did, for both the CBC and the Canadian Press. In most places, I was the only reporter at all covering any of their ceremonies and remembrances.

In a thank you note, then-minister Gerald Merrithew said my presence was unexpected, but "most welcome."

"The resultant publicity that you gave our pilgrimage was invaluable," he wrote. "Until recently, few Canadians knew about this campaign and its significance to the Allied cause of the Second World War. Your presence with us on this trip helped change all that."

Twenty years later, today, I am now busy working on research for a new book, to be about the Canadian Jewish servicemen who were killed during the Second World War. I know 43 of them are buried in Italy.

If anyone has information about, or is related to any Canadian Jewish servicemen or women who died, for any reason, in the Second World War, kindly please contact me, to help me put the information in my book. ebessner@gmail.com

Thank you letter from Minister of Veterans Affairs, 1994.

Here are some of my other stories published at the time of the 1994 trip.

Italians issue comic book about Canadian liberators: Winnipeg Free Press 1994

Canadian veterans meet the Pope: thank you - this one was from the 1991 Canadian pilgrimage, on the 47th anniversary.

Anzio, ceremony May 27, 1991, Ellin with Jack Callowhill, from Stoney Creek, Ontario, with the First Special Service Force. Callowhill was 90, just last year.

Anzio centre, memorial for First Special Service Force, 1991, Ellin is 5th from left.

Why Stephen Harper should speak louder to help free Mohamed Fahmy and other Al Jazeera journalists in an Egyptian jail

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Fri, 27 Jun 2014 12:48:00 +0000

As a national director of the Canadian Association of Journalists, I was invited to speak Thursday on SUN News Network, about our earlier news release, which condemned the conviction of Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy and his colleagues by an Egyptian court Monday. It asked Prime Minister Stephen Harper to be more vocal in working for Fahmy's release.

I participated in a short interview on the show "The Source" with Ezra Levant.

Here is the clip.

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/featured/prime-time/867432237001/canadian-sentenced-in-egypt/3645078474001

Watch French Jews say the memorial Kaddish for Canadian and U.S. D-Day soldiers in Normandy, June 8, 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 20:31:00 +0000

(video courtesy Jean-Claude Prot, Mediaglobalcom)
http://youtu.be/EielJPOY9Pk

While a giant grey Hercules C-130 military aircraft carried out a solo fly past overhead, more than 200 French Jews gathered Sunday June 8, 2014 at the Normandy American Cemetery for what organizers called “a very emotional service” – the very first communal Kaddish recited in memory of the fallen Canadian and American Jewish servicemen from the Second World War who are buried nearby.

The ceremony took place in the same spot where two days earlier, world leaders including U.S. President Barrack Obama and French President Francois Hollande paid tribute to the 70^th anniversary of the historic military sacrifices of June 6, 1944, which led to the liberation of Europe.

“When the Jewish Choir of France began singing, led by Cantor Raphael Cohen with that tenor voice…it was just something unbelievable,” said organizer Jean-Max Skenadji, who became inspired to arrange Sunday’s landmark Kaddish while on a private trip to Normandy last winter.

“I discovered Stars of David at the [Colleville-sur-Mer] cemetery and I was just taken by such a big emotion and felt very sorry because, since I was alone, I wasn’t able to say Kaddish for them [the soldiers], ” Skenadji recalled Tuesday, in a telephone interview from his office in Paris. After checking the religious legality of staging such an event, Skenadji, a long-time promoter in France, launched the D-Day trip.

“What would have become of us without the disembarkation of the Allies in France in June 1944?” he told the crowd.

One by one, the visitors read out the names of the 149 Jewish American soldiers whose tombstones are shaped like Stars of David at the cemetery, just inland from the famous Omaha Beach. The crowd also read out the names of nearly 60 Jewish Canadian airmen and soldiers. Their graves lie further east along the Normandy coastline, in cemeteries including Beny-sur-Mer, and Bretteville-sur-Laize.

The ceremony was “impressive, very solemn, and moving,” said Cantor Rabbi Raphael Cohen, a Paris-based clergyman, in an email after the ceremony.

During the 90-minute memorial, Cohen led the singing of the El Maale Rahamim prayer, plus Esa Einay, a funeral hymn, and the blessing for the State of Israel.

Cantor Rabbi Raphael Cohen and the Jewish Choir of France, courtesy Jean-Max Skenadji)

The crowd then recited the Kaddish aloud, led by Rabbi Moshe Lewin, the chief Jewish chaplain to France’s armed forces.

Rabbi Moshe Lewin

Isabelle Allard, local MLA, and Caen Mayor Joel Bruneau

Jean-Max Skenadji (right) with flag bearers (all photos courtesy Jean-Max Skenadji)

Among the other dignitaries on hand to pay respects were the mayor of Caen, Joel Bruneau, Isabelle Attard, a member of the French National Assembly from the Calvados region, Col. Yehudi Lahav, the military attaché at the Israeli embassy in Paris, and nine French war veterans who acted as flag bearers.

Local rabbis from the Deauville Chabad community inscribed the first few Hebrew letters in a fresh new Torah scroll they are dedicating to the memory of the Jewish servicemen and their wartime sacrifices.

(courtesy Jean-Max Skenadji)

While organizers were pleased that so many people turned out for the event, including many non-Jewish visitors to the American cemetery who stopped to watch, Skenadji remains disappointed that neither the U.S. nor Canadian embassies in France sent representatives, despite repeated invitations.

“They just couldn’t come back to Normandy in order to be present at another ceremony,” said Skenajdi, acknowledging how diplomatic staff may have been too busy from the official state ceremonies on Friday. “But from my point of view, that’s no excuse.”

A spokesperson for the Canadian Embassy in Paris, Colonel Guy Maillet, did send his regrets, saying there was just no time left for either himself or the Canadian ambassador, Lawrence Cannon, to fit this Sunday commemoration into the busy D-Day calendar.

And in Ottawa, the Department of Foreign Affairs issued a brief statement, saying Canada was represented in Normandy “at the highest level” during the D-Day ceremonies, and repeated Canada’s position on the State of Israel.

“Canada has a strong and close relationship with Israel based on shared values, common interests, and strong political and social ties between our two countries,” said Beatrice Fenelon, a spokesperson for the department.

For his part, Skenadji is hoping for a different answer next year, when he plans to stage the Kaddish service again in Normandy.

And for next time, Skenadji is planning to invite the families of the American and Canadian soldiers killed here, to make the trip to France.

Next May, 2015 will see the world mark another milestone: the 70^th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe, or VE-Day.

How Canadian Synagogues said Kaddish for D-Day 2014

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 23:57:00 +0000

Adath Israel logo, Montreal

Montreal Rabbi Michael Whitman paid tribute Saturday June 7, 2014 to the three RCMP officers killed in Moncton, as part of a wider memorial service at Adath Israel synagogue for all Canadians who risked their lives to serve others, including those killed on the 70^th anniversary of D-Day in the Second World War.

As world leaders including Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President Barrack attended the official 70^th anniversary events in France, synagogues from Manitoba to Montreal took part in the Kaddish for D-Day initiative. They paid tribute to the seventy Jewish soldiers and airmen from Canada who were killed in France and are buried in cemeteries across Normandy.

“By 1944, the Jewish soldiers understood they were not only fighting for Canada, but also for the remnant of the Jewish people in Europe,” Whitman said, explaining why he added their sacrifices, and the murders of the three Mounties, to the Adath’s regular prayer for the Canadian Armed Forces.

Rabbi Alan Green, Shaarey Zedek (courtesy of synagogue website)

Some congregations, like in Winnipeg, did it as part of the Yizkor prayers recited on the holiday of Shavuot.

Calling the D-Day invasion a “mega-historical event”, on par with the founding of the State of Israel, the moonwalk, and the Holocaust, Rabbi Alan Green of Winnipeg’s Shaarey Zedek called on his worshippers Thursday June 5, to remember the sacrifices of local Jewish men who went overseas.

“Among the casualties on D-Day and in ensuing battles, were fourteen Jewish rifleman, troopers, captains, doctors, pilots, and lawyers--from Winnipeg,” Green told the congregation. “They're now buried in cemeteries in Northern France, and, as we're are about to perform the special Yizkor service for Shavuot--along with all those we're remembering today--on this day before the 70th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, I would ask you to add, the following fourteen names.”

He then read out the names, including Harry Segal, a rifleman with the Royal Winnipeg Rifles. The Rifles landed on Juno Beach at 7:49 a.m. on the morning of the invasion, and sustained heavy casualties, according to military records. Segal died June 8, 1944. He was married, and the son of Charles and Sarah Segal.

In Toronto, several synagogues participated in Kaddish for D-Day, including Beit Rayim, in Vaughan, led by Rabbi Chezi Zionce, who read out all 70 names Thursday, also during Yizkor.

For Beit Rayim worshipper Nellie Miller, who knew one of the men on the list, Private Joe Gertel of Montreal, hearing the names “just sent a chill up my spine.”

“I recall those days,” Miller said in an interview, recalling growing up in Montreal when Gertel went off to enlist. He is buried in the Beny-sur-Mer Military Cemetery near Juno Beach, in France. He was killed in July 1944, while attached to the North Nova Scotia Highlanders. He was 22.

Joe Gertel's tombstone in Beny-sur-Mer, France (John Friedlan photo)

Prayers were also said at Conservative synagogue, Beth Tzedek in Toronto, led by Rabbi Baruch Frydman-Kohl.

“I think it was exceptionally important and encouraged the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs to circulate the information, “ Frydman-Kohl wrote in an email. “The yahrzeit [anniversary] on the Jewish calendar will be 25 Sivan.”

And at the City Shul, Rabbi Elyse Goldstein read the names of five Canadian servicemen from Toronto and gave a little bit of information about each one, whether they went to the University of Toronto, or whose family were members of Holy Blossom Synagogue.

“It was beautiful. People were very moved,” she wrote, in an email.

In Montreal, services for the Canadian war dead were also held at Congregation Shaare Zion and at Congregation Dorshei Emet.

According to Dorshei Emet member Lois Lieff, “it was indeed a very moving and emotional Kaddish.”

In Kitchener, where Beth Jacob Congregation lost three members of the shul during the Second World War, Kaddish was recited on the Friday evening June 6.

According to the synagogue bulletin, the three casualties were Sidney Acker, Lorie Reider and Samuel Harry Roseman. Reider and Roseman are buried in France. Acker, of Guelph, was killed when his Anson bomber crashed during training in Ontario, in 1942.

50 Canadians went and said Kaddish for Bomb. George Meltz of Toronto, 25, at his grave in Normandy

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Sun, 08 Jun 2014 12:24:00 +0000

Three years ago, my family walked by the tombstone of Jewish Canadian serviceman George Meltz, of Toronto, standing out among the thousands of white headstones at the Second World War Beny-sur-Mer cemetery, near Juno Beach, in France.

Now, my dear friend Ted Barris, a Canadian military historian, author and broadcaster, is back in Normandy, and has lit a memorial Yarhzeit candle at Meltz's grave, seventy years after Meltz made the ultimate sacrifice as part of Canada's D-Day invasion in 1944.

The group of 50 Canadians who are travelling with Barris on this international anniversary saw the Meltz tombstone, and read the powerful epitaph "He died so Jewry shall suffer no more." Thank you Ted, and all Canadians who remembered Meltz, as well as the 70+ Jewish servicemen buried in France, and said Kaddish for them.

Post by Ted Barris.

Twin Jewish brothers from Toronto served in the Canadian Forces during the Second World War: One went to France after D-Day. And didn't come back.

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Fri, 06 Jun 2014 16:35:00 +0000

(photo courtesy of http://twgpp.org/
Steve Rogers)

So thrilled to hear from the family of Bombardier Albert Tweyman, of Toronto, killed Aug. 8, 1944 near Caen, France, on D-Day + 63 of the Normandy invasion. Bombardier Albert Tweyman, of the Essex Scottish Regiment, was one of eight children, and a twin to brother Jack, who also served in the Second World War, and is still living in Toronto, at age 94.

Albert was also born in 1919. He lived with his parents Rose and Harry Tweyman and some of his seven brothers and sisters In Toronto, on Dundas Street West. He loved sports, and could drive. He finished Grade 9 at Central Tech high school, but told the militia he’d had to leave school at 14, according to his official service records, to help out at home. He worked for several years before being called up, including as an editorial assistant and composer for the Daily Hebrew Journal (Yiddisher Zhurnal), and later, for Columbia Pictures, as an office clerk.

In March 1941, he was called up and assigned to the militia. On his interview form, he said he preferred to be in the Air Force, but his application was rejected because he couldn’t provide the RCAF with his parents’ naturalization papers, as they were married in Poland. He was a small man, at just 5'3 and 129 pounds. He was assigned to an Anti Aircraft Battery and spent over a year in Kitchener, Borden, and Halifax before transferring to active service in Saint John, New Brunswick in May 1942.

Tweyman would spent another two years training in Canada, mainly in Sydney and Windsor, Nova Scotia, but also in southwestern Ontario. A Captain A.C. O’Grady who interviewed him in July 1943, suggested to his superiors that Tweyman would be better suited for the navy, but that never happened. He was trained as an army driver and then worked as a Bombardier instructor.

He embarked for England, from Halifax, on June 3, 1944. At the time, he was earning $1.50 a day.

The crossing took a week. He disembarked in England on June 10, 1944, a few days after D-Day. He was sent to France a month later, on July 22, 1944 and was likely part of the Canadian Army’s campaign to push the Germans back past Caen, and then southeast towards Falaise.

According to historians, the Essex Scottish Regiment was involved in two major battles in July. They were also involved in Operation Totalize, which began at 11:00 p.m. on Aug. 7, 1944, south of Caen.

It started with a massive Royal Air Force bombing raid to soften up entrenched German positions including near Cormelles, a factory town on the outskirts of Caen. At 9:00 the next morning, the Germans counterattacked. The Canadians, British, and Polish artillery were working from one direction while the Americans were working on the other side, trying to trap the elite German troops stationed in the area.

But the fighting was heavy, and the Canadians decided to call for air support. At noon on August 8, over 600 USAF bombers pounded the area with high explosive bombs and fragmentation bombs. According to Ken Ford in "Falaise 1944: Death of An Army", some of the American bombers dropped their loads on top of the Canadians, Poles and Brits, by mistake. When the smoke had cleared, there were over 300 men dead, killed in friendly fire.

While we don't know where exactly Tweyman was when he was wounded that day, a medical report says Private Tweyman suffered “traumatic” shrapnel wounds to his leg, that left him with “gross damage.” He received morphine, and Anti Tetanus serum at about 10 p.m. that night in a British field hospital, and died shortly afterwords, at 22:10.

The army buried him “with religious rites” in a temporary cemetery in a factory near Cormelles.

His family was officially notified two weeks later, and at first, they were told only that he’d been wounded. When they replied by telegram asking about Tweyman’s condition and what hospital he was in, in England, the officials apologized for confusing them, and said that he had, in fact, never made it to a hospital, but had died of his wounds on Aug. 8, 1944.

Courtesy Veterans Affairs Canada, Virtual War Memorial

They sent Tweyman’s gold ring, and his wristwatch back to Canada. After the war was over, officials reburied Tweyman in the large Canadian war cemetery in nearby Bretteville-sur-Laize, in 1946.

(photos courtesy of http://twgpp.org/
Steve Rogers, and Veterans Affairs Canada Virtual War Memorial)

How an Edmonton man from a prominent Jewish family came to be buried on a hilltop in Normandy, France after D-Day.

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Thu, 05 Jun 2014 20:10:00 +0000

Berou-la-Mulotiere, Cemetery, France. (Photo courtesy of Alain Octavie)

http://www.inmemories.com/Cemeteries/beroulamulottiere.htm

Alan Rodd (Abram Rodnunsky) photo courtesy Veterans Affairs Canada, Virtual War Memorial.

Flight Sergeant Alan Rodd, 25, (born Abram Rodnunsky), was the son of Sam and Annie Rodnunsky, of Edmonton. He initially enlisted in Winnipeg with the Canadian army, but switched to the air force. He took flight training in Canada, then went overseas and was posted to the RAF base in Tuddenham, Suffolk, with the 90 Squadron RAF.

Just after D-Day, Rodd and his crew were among 432 Allied aircraft involved in a massive overnight bombing raid with Bomber Command, on June 10, 1944 from England. Rodd’s plane was relatively new: the British airforce took delivery of the Lancaster in May, 1944, and it had only 31 hours of flying time logged. The pilot, Lt. George Atherton Thatcher, was British, and there were two other Canadians on board: John Alfred Anderton, and John Carr Francis. The Lancaster Mark III was number NE149. The pilot took off at 11:13 p.m. on a mission to bomb the railway station and installations at Dreux, west of Paris, to prevent German reinforcements from reaching the D-Day beaches in Normandy.

According to records, Rodd and his crew flew across the English Channel towards France in good weather, with clear skies, and good visibility. The three-hour flight was uneventful, but the Germans were waiting for them. They had radar, and had seen the hundreds of Allied bombers approaching targets near Paris. It’s not known whether the Lancaster managed to drop any of its bombs, nor whether a German fighter plane hit them, or they were hit by ground Flak, but the Lancaster crashed in the village of Berou-la-Moulotiere. All seven crewmen were killed. A total of six Lancasters were lost that night over Dreux.

Rodd and his crewmen were buried together in the village cemetery. Rodd’s grave is the first one from the left.

Kaddish for D-Day is front page news in the Canadian Jewish News today.

noreply@blogger.com (Ellin Bessner) — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 21:25:00 +0000

Since we started the campaign to get Canadian Jews to say Kaddish for D-Day's 70th anniversary, the editor of the Canadian Jewish News, Yoni Goldstein, has been on board as a supporter, lending the CJN's credibility to this effort. Today, the story was front page news in the Toronto and Montreal CJN editions, as well as on Page 8, and I can't thank him enough.

As you and your families read about the sacrifices made by our Canadian Jewish servicemen during the Second World War to help liberate Europe from the Nazis, please say Kaddish for them, too. There are 71 Canadian servicemen from this war buried in graves in Normandy and Northern France. The full list of their names and hometowns is here.

The Facebook page Kaddish For DDay, has bios and stories of individual casualties.

The Twitter account is Kaddish for DDay.

So far, synagogues (the ones we know about) who are commemorating the Kaddish for D-Day include:

Congregation Beit Rayim in Toronto,
Congregation Dorshei Emet in Montreal,
Congregation Machzekei Hadas in Ottawa,
Congregation Adath Shalom in Ottawa,
Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Winnipeg,
Congregation B'nai Torah in Boca Raton, Florida,
Beth Jacob Congregation of Kitchener-Waterloo,
Shaarei Emeth in St. Louis, Missouri.

If you know of a synagogue or kehila that also participated in Kaddish for D-Day, please let us know.

KaddishforDday@gmail.com or Post it on Facebook or Tweet us.