For International Holocaust Remembrance Day at Congregation Habonim of Toronto Jan. 24, 2020

Congregation Habonim 5 Glen Park Avenue, Toronto, Canada

On the eve of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, journalist and author Ellin Bessner will bring the story of the Canadian Jewish military personnel who fought for Canada in WWII, helped defeat Hitler, and rescued the survivors of the Holocaust. Bessner's new book "Double Threat", published by the University of Toronto, tells the story of these 17,000 Canadians of Jewish faith who were serving not only for King and Country, but also on a sacred mission to try to save the Jewish people of Europe. They faced great personal risk, and tremendous antisemitism at home, and on the battlefield. As the world marks the 75th anniversary of the Liberation of Auschwitz, Ellin will speak about the Jewish Canadian private from Montreal who arrest the “Beast of Belsen”, and the Jewish airman from Toronto who took the Belsen orphans on picnics, as well the lasting impact on the mental health of these Canadian soldiers after their encounters with Hitler’s Final Solution.

Ellin speaks at the Lodzer Congregation + the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research Toronto branch March 4, 2020

Lodzer Centre 12 Heaton, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

On the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII, and the Liberation of Holland and other parts of occupied Europe, Ellin Bessner will share stories of how Canada’s fighting Jewish men in uniform acted with great compassion to rescue the survivors as the soldiers came face to face with the truth about the horrors of the Final Solution

The 75th Anniversary of the Liberation of Holland and the end of WWII: Ellin speaks at the Scugog Museum

Scucog Shores Museum 16210 Island Rd, Port Perry, Ontario, Canada

As the world commemorates the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, author and journalist Ellin Bessner brings her new book “Double Threat” to the Scugog Shores Museum Village and Archives. As Canada, and indeed the world, marked the end of the fighting in the spring of 1945, hundreds of Canadian airmen and soldiers were still hard at work overseas with a new humanitarian mission: rescuing the survivors of the Holocaust,  including in Germany at the site of the notorious Nazi death camp Bergen-Belsen.

Copyright © Ellin Bessner