Posts with the Hitler tag

Barris Beat

Reluctant hero 80 years on

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Pilot Officer Albert Wallace wearing his air gunner’s brevet.

In the dead of night in western Poland, Albert Wallace made sand disappear. That winter of 1944, he trekked through snow, his RCAF airman’s pants concealing long sacks of sand excavated from secret escape tunnels. Inside a now darkened theatre, his German captors had allowed POWs to build inside their prison compound, Wallace quietly stepped into a designated row of seats.

“I was told to sit there because that’s where the trapdoor was,” Wallace said. “I sat in seat Number 13, pulled the sack strings and emptied the sand inside my pants through a trapdoor hidden under the seat.” (more…)

Barris Beat

A new assault up Juno Beach

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Cpl Fred Barnard of the Queen’s Own Rifles.

It’s just 20 years ago I learned about the toughest battle of Fred Barnard’s life. On a spring morning in 1944, our Uxbridge neighbour (then just 22) found himself on a landing craft with the Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada about to storm the Normandy beach codenamed Juno. He had no family in France that needed saving. He knew none of the German soldiers occupying those Norman towns and seaports.

Rifleman Don Barnard of the Queen’s Own Rifles.

Still, he’d felt so compelled by the call for Canadians to help liberate the French from Nazi occupation that he and his brother Don travelled halfway around the globe to join the D-Day invasion on June 6.

“Give ’em hell,” Fred had yelled to his 20-year-old brother on the same landing craft.

Then, moments later, as he dashed for cover, among the first Canadians to penetrate Hitler’s Fortress Europe, Fred faced a horrific dilemma. There, in the sea water not yet ashore, he saw his brother with a bullet hole in his chest – dead before he’d even reached the sea wall. (more…)

Barris Beat

Including all ‘the few’

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F/L William Nelson, a Canadian of Jewish faith,  who served with distinction in the Battle of Britain. Photo – Canadian Jewish Heritage Network.

“We are all in this together.”

It’s a phrase often repeated in times of crisis, a common call to arms or for popular solidarity, that leaders have adapted in so many different ways. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s told Americans (at his inauguration in 1933) to pull together since, “The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.”

In October 1970, after the FLQ kidnapping of a politician and a trade diplomat, Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, encouraging Canadians, “If we stand firm, this current situation will soon pass.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Leadership in our darkest hour

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Winston Churchill greets public with signature V-for-Victory signduring Second World War.

It’s come back to me often the past few weeks. It’s the last scene from the movie Darkest Hour. Winston Churchill, just a few weeks into his wartime administration in May 1940, watches across the English Channel as Belgium falls to the Nazis. Then, France falls. Desperately, he entreats thousands of private boat owners in England to retrieve retreating British Army troops – 300,000 of them – from the beaches of Dunkirk. And he contemplates Hitler’s invasion of Britain, delivering in the House of Commons one of many momentous wartime speeches:

“We shall fight on the beaches…” he proclaims. “We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.” (more…)

Barris Beat

A pledge … 75 years later

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I met a couple of teachers, a few years ago. At least, I came to know a little of their lives. There’s not much I can relate. They were both Polish. One was named Jan Ciechanowski, born in March 1882. And Jerzy Brem was born in September 1914, as the Great War began. They both came to the area of Poland, around Krakow, in 1941. Or, more correctly, they were brought there, to the small town of Oswiecim, which elite German armies then occupied. The Nazis renamed the place, Auschwitz. And here’s the way the Nazis’ records summed up those two teachers:

Jan Ciechanowski, teacher.
Jerzy Brem, teacher.

 

 

“Jan, number 11193, executed Oct. 29, 1941” and “Jerzy, number 10190, executed August 19, 1942.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Democracy and the flames of economy

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Book burnings by the Nazis in 1933 – Wikipedia.

When I left on a short holiday, about 10 days ago, this fall’s municipal election in my home own looked rather dull. While the mayoral contest and the regional council races were shaping up to be competitive, the number of candidates running in our wards left several virtually uncontested and even on the verge of proclaimed winners. Within the span of my holiday, though, the picture changed radically. To quote a friend of mine:

“It’ll be democracy, after all!” (more…)

Barris Beat

Accounting for more than numbers

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Ebenezer Scrooge at his ledger – more important to him than his nephew’s Christmas greetings. Victorian Web.

The new year brings annual habits. Some of my friends are already eating crow about their promises to eat less, workout more and save somewhere in between. Others are still writing cheques (remember them?) with 2017 in the date box. Me? Well, I ran into my annual problem, especially at the franchise stationery shop.

“Do you have any ledgers?” I asked the clerk.

“You mean like lined-paper ledgers?” she said as if I had just asked her to fix my typewriter, give me a roll of pennies or fill ’er up. Then, she shook her head unsympathetically and I realized this was a no-go. (more…)

Barris Beat

What makes Canada, Canada

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Aerial photo of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp where the storage buildings of valuables stolen from Jewish prisoners were called "Canada" warehouses.
Aerial photo of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp where the storage buildings of valuables stolen from Jewish prisoners were called "Canada" warehouses.

Seventy years ago, Hitler and his henchmen murdered civilian populations across occupied Europe: Jews, Roma, homosexuals, communists and thousands of other so-called enemies of the Third Reich. But before they did, they stripped them of every single personal possession – from heirlooms to clothing to gold fillings – and stockpiled them for exploitation by the Nazi regime. In an ironic twist of fate, I learned recently, the warehouses at Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp had an odd nickname.

“The Polish prisoners called the warehouses ‘Canada,’” our guide at the concentration camp museum told us, “after the faraway place they’d once heard contained riches and freedom.”

(more…)

Barris Beat

To condemn or save

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The railway tracks into the Nazis' Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp proved to be a one-way trip to extermination.
The railway tracks into the Nazis' Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp proved to be a one-way trip to extermination.

I met a couple of teachers this week. At least, I came to know a little of their stories. There’s not much I can relate. They were both Polish. One was named Ciechanowski Jan, born in March 1882. And Brem Jerzy was born in September 1914, as the Great War began. They both came to the area of Poland, around Krakow, in 1941. Or, more correctly, they were brought there, to the small town of Oswiecim, which German armies then occupied. Only the Nazis renamed the place Auschwitz. And here’s the way their records summed up those two teachers:

“Jan, number 11193, executed Oct. 29, 1941” and “Jerzy, number 10190, executed August 19, 1942.”

(more…)