Posts with the Rene Thied tag

Barris Beat

The German who served Canadians

Written by Ted Barris on . 8 Comments
Rene Thied in 2013, listening to Canadian veterans recall their role in the liberation of Sicily.
Rene Thied – art historian, tour guide and lover of life – seemed eager to learn more every day.

Like it did millions of other Europeans, the Second World War changed Rene Thied’s life. Born in Hanover, Germany, following the war, Thied first learned about the Holocaust while he attended Ann Frank Schule, a grade school in Hanover. Even as a boy, Rene was appalled by what the Nazis did during the war.

“I couldn’t live in a country that had done such a thing,” he told me years later, “so, I decided to leave my home country.”

Today, November 11, Canada’s annual Remembrance Day, I will try to pay tribute to as many Allied servicewomen and men as I can. Over the years, I have had the good fortune to meet and interview perhaps 6,000 vets of the two World Wars, the Korean War, U.N. peacekeeping and Afghanistan. Many of them are top of mind today. (more…)

Barris Beat

How to get there

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
So I looked for...
I figured I could just follow the orange detour signs.

Earlier this week, I paid a visit to Midland, Ontario. The Askennonia Senior Centre had invited me to do a keynote speech for the annual Veterans’ Luncheon there. Not a problem, except that the Bruce Peninsula is not a region of the province through which I travel often. I wasn’t familiar with the roads. To make matters slightly more challenging, travelling up Highway 400 and in search of Hwy 93 (the route to Midland) that day I suddenly faced a problem.

“Exit to Hwy 93 closed,” the sign read. “Follow detour signs.”

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Barris Beat

Getting life from a stone

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

The restored Frauenkirche church in Dresden in August 2010.
The restored Frauenkirche church in Dresden in August 2010.

I remember the day some business friends and I needed a room in which to meet. A financial advisor friend offered his offices. As I sat down in his boardroom, I spotted a large picture frame on the wall. It contained several images of the former post office in my town. It was typical of that turn-of-the-century, Edwardian construction – tall central tower, large windows, red bricks. When I asked what had happened to it, someone said they’d torn it down.

“Any chance they’d ever rebuild something like that?” I asked naively.

“No will. No way,” fellow board members told me.

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