Posts with the featured tag

Barris Beat

Still a noble profession

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
The keys to ethical journalism
The keys to ethical journalism

Last winter, during one of the daily meetings with my staff at the Toronto Observer (the online newspaper produced by senior journalism students at Centennial College where I teach), one of my student reporters faced a dilemma. We had assigned her to attend the funeral of Sgt. Ryan Russell, the Toronto Police Service officer killed by a stolen pickup truck with a snow plow. It was too late for her to get a press pass to the funeral. So how, she wondered, would she get into the ceremony?

“Do I hide the fact I’m a reporter?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “It’s a public funeral. You should be able to get in. But if they ask you not to take photographs, respect their wishes.”

(more…)

Barris Beat

What makes Canada, Canada

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
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

The favourite uncle

Written by Ted Barris on . 2 Comments
Our favourite Uncle George joins a toast to his 80th birthday.
Our favourite Uncle George joins a toast to his 80th birthday.

I remember the first time he spoiled us. My sister and I often travelled with our parents to New York City, where they had grown up. Until that time in the early 1960s, however, whenever we holidayed with relatives in the Big Apple, my sister and I had pretty much been turned over to our grandparents for entertainment and discipline. But this time was different. When we arrived, instead of the customary hugs and kisses from Yiayia and Popou (Greek for Grandma and Grandpa), there was this guy taking charge.

“Wanna go for a ride?” he asked us. And our Uncle George (my mother’s baby brother) led us to the garage to see his late model (early 1960s) Chrysler convertible. It was salmon coloured. It had these massive tail fins. It even boasted the most modern of driving conveniences – a push-button transmission. “Watch this,” George said. And he just pushed in the “D” button for “Drive” and away we went.

(more…)

Barris Beat

Resist to live

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
Jan Palach memorial at Wenceslas Square in Prague.
Jan Palach memorial at Wenceslas Square in Prague.

On Jan. 19, 1969, a university student, named Jan Palach, died in a hospital in Prague. Three days earlier he had gone to Wenceslas Square, near a statue of the 10th century duke of Bohemia (and the “Good King Wenceslas” of Christmas carol fame). There, in front of his history classmates and the authorities, he set himself on fire in protest against the Soviet Union’s occupation of his homeland. His suicide was a final act of defiance against the latest in a long line of occupiers of his country – the Czech Republic.

“It was [his] last appeal for resistance,” author Petr Cornej wrote.

(more…)

Barris Beat

To condemn or save

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
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…)

Barris Beat

Supporting those behind the troops

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Pte. Demetrios Deplaros
Pte. Demetrios Deplaros

Last Saturday night, during a fundraising event at the McLaughlin Armoury, in Oshawa, Ont., I met the mother of Demetrios Diplaros. Her son, a 24-year-old private in the third battalion of the Royal Canadian Regiment, was killed on Dec. 5, 2008, when the armoured vehicle in which he was travelling hit an improvised explosive device near Kandahar, Afghanistan. Mrs. Diplaros and I spoke for a few minutes during the event, but mostly I just looked sympathetically into her still hurting face. As our conversation wound up, she thanked me for listening.

“I don’t know what I would have done without the support of friends and the military family,” she said, as she held on to me for dear life.

(more…)

Barris Beat

Paying the piper

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
A 25th anniversary celebration of Public Lending Rights for writers. PLR campaigners (l to r) Ken McGoogan, Andreas Schroeder, Anna Porter and Alan Cumyn (chair of The Writers' Union of Canada posed Thursday, May 26, 2011, at the Toronto Reference Library.
A 25th anniversary celebration of Public Lending Rights for authors. PLR campaigners (l to r) Ken McGoogan, Andreas Schroeder, Anna Porter and Alan Cumyn (chair of The Writers' Union of Canada) posed Thursday, May 26, 2011, at the Toronto Reference Library. (Photo courtesy Michelle Legault.)

Imagine for a moment, a shopper comes into your retail store. The shopper browses along a couple of aisles, pulls a few items from the shelves or the racks, puts them in a shopping basket. Then he leaves your store without paying a penny. Or, imagine a client enters your office. You’re a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer, an accountant or anyone offering a professional service. How likely is it that client will leave your office without squaring his account? Not very likely.

If the shopper or client did, you’d consider it shoplifting or theft and you’d probably call the police.

(more…)

Barris Beat

Aid, not Apolcalyptic nonsense

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
The hospital at Sylmar, California, had to be demolished following the Feb. 9, 1971, earthquake.
The hospital at Sylmar, California, had to be demolished following the Feb. 9, 1971, earthquake.

The only time I came close to experiencing a natural disaster first-hand was in 1971. I landed in Los Angeles a few weeks after the 6.6 magnitude Sylmar earthquake rattled the San Fernando Valley. At the time, my parents and sister lived in the valley suburb known as Tarzana (where MGM studios shot all those movies with Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan back in the 1930s). I remember sitting in my folks’ living room a few nights after I’d arrived when I felt a faint vibration beneath me. I looked at my sister.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” she said casually. “Just an after shock.”

(more…)

Barris Beat

Keepers of the shelves

Written by Ted Barris on . 1 Comment
XCXCXCXCXCXC
School librarians give students more than a Library of Congress number and a table of contents.

I think I remembered discovering it when I was about 11 years old. Until then, I had kind of dismissed it as a remote corner in my life. I think because I happened to be in a brand new school – in a village northeast of Toronto – there were lots of other places I chose to explore first: the baseball diamond, the cafeteria and gymnasium. Then, Mike Malott, my Grade 5 teacher, challenged us.

(more…)

Barris Beat

Impatient to get on with life

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
J.M. Barrie wrote
Reading from J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan"

I received a photograph online from my son-in-law this week. It shows his wife – our daughter Whitney – holding two very precious creations. One is a copy of the play/book “Peter Pan.” The second is her recently delivered son – Coen George Ross-Barris. The picture shows Whitney reading from the J.M. Barrie book in a hospital.

“All children, except one, grow up,” author Barrie writes in Peter Pan.

(more…)