Micha Menczer Interview

Transcription completed 3/9/2019

Micha Menczer Interview 3.7.2019 – Defying Hatred Project



Stanger-Ross: I start all the interviews by saying who we are and where we are in case this gets
separated from our form. How do I pronounce your first name?

Menczer: {phonetically] Mee-sha

Stanger-Ross: And your last name?

Menczer: Men-sur.

Stanger-Ross: Micha Menczer and Jordan Stanger-Ross and we're at 737 Transit Rd in Victoria,
Micha's home, for an interview for the Defying Hatred project on July 3rd 2019. Thank you.

Menczer: Ok.

Stanger-Ross: This will be a conversation that will follow your direction, and we'll talk about
three main topics. Usually start with biographical discussion, just where you come from, how
you ended up working in the area of Holocaust memorialisation or education. The second is
talking about some of those details of the activities that have occurred in Victoria. Our third topic
is on the level of ideas, what you think Holocaust education is for and how it should be
conducted to achieve those aims. If we start, how did you end up in the business?

Menczer: Ok, you let me know if this is too much or too little and time and all that. So I'm a
child of survivors which is probably the main reason. My parents were both from the province of
Bukovina. They were born and it was part of Austria and after the first world war it became
Romania. They lived there, they were both from around Czernowitz. My father was from a small
town called Strojenitz where his family had been for a long time, and were well respected and I
think a reasonably well to do family with some property on the main street. I know my
grandfather after whom I'm named had a dried goods store. I think they were quite wealthy in my
great-grandfather's time and when it go all divided up, my grandfather after whom I'm named,
was not very aggressive, didn't care -- but they lived well and my mother's family was from
another little shtetl around Czernowitz called Suceava and they were -- my grandfather was a
rental farmer, a poor farmer and had a large family but they really valued education. My uncles
became engineers and one graduated from medical school and one was a professor, and my
mother even graduated from business school. So I don't know how they did it but that's what they
did. They were all there in the war. My paternal grandfather and grandmother both passed away
beforehand. My parents were married in 1935. In the winter of I think 40, 41, they were deported
to Bershad in the Ukraine.

[00:03:17]

Menczer: I'll go back. My mother had a very good job. She was the executive secretary for
basically a baron's family with large landholdings. So she had really quite an exceptional job for



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a woman and a Jewish woman in that era. And my father had a very good -- cause he ran the
store, my father -- any political acumen or interest I get I get from my father. He was an active
writer, I think he was an active Zionist. The store was just his day job to allow his writing and his
other interests. They had a very good life and they probably could have avoided deportation
because of my mother's employers connections. They were still well respected. But when this
was offered to her -- as my mother has told me the story -- she said "well, what about my family?
my father-in-law? my brother and his family?" And they said "we can only protect a few people,
it's very dangerous and we don't even know how many." So she said "well, it's either all of us or
we go together." So they were deported to Bershad, my parents, my aunt and uncle, and their
teenage daughter. And my grandfather, I think my maternal grandmother had died before the
war. Perhaps other relatives, but those are the central ones that I know. My father's best friend is
the other name that always comes up in the story.

[00:04:44]

Menczer: They were transported by foot, by railcar, and my mother basically said "I work here,
they're talking us to a work camp, I'll work there." I think my uncle who is a history professor
had a different kind of sense and he essentially I think gave up. So there by railcar and by foot,
and it was winter, it was pretty harsh, and he died en route or very soon after. He basically gave
up and succumbed. And the first winter was very very harsh, as my mother's explained it to me,
and a lot of people died from malnutrition and the elements. They were taken to a ghetto in
Bershad and they were all crammed into a ghetto that probably could have housed -- I don't
know the number's really -- but probably could have housed 1,000 people. But there were 10 and
20 times as many people. So there was rampant cholera and typhoid in the first winter, and
malnutrition. It wasn't an extermination camp in the terms of the better-known Auschwitz and
the other camps, but people were -- you know -- if there was any disturbance people were taken
out and actually killed. My father's best friend was the head of -- I think it was called Judenrat or
a local council -- my father was on it trying to manage stuff and his best friend was the head and
I guess they were pushing a little too much. I remember the story my mother told me was that
one time they came looking for Michael Shrentzel was his name -- name's are important -- and
they said "if you don't tell us where he is we'll start shooting children. We'll start shooting people
and children. So he turned himself in and he was taken away and never seen again, so I presume
he was killed. They were in the camp I believe three and a half years. It's so fundamental but I'm
not really sure of the liberation dates. But I think about three, three and a half years for sure.
They survived a lot on my mother's strength. My father was a very intelligent man, a very good
man, a very kind man. My mother was a pragmatist, so she was basically the person who helped
the family survive. She would go to -- two of my uncles were not deported, they were in the big
city of Bucharest and no one had denounced them. Quite an interesting story, one of my uncle's
lived next door to a church, to a priest, and the night when the Ukrainian Iron Guard came and
said "are there any Jews in the neighbourhood?" the priest looked them straight in the eye and
said "there are no Jews here." So my uncle survived and he managed to find someone who was
travelling, it was part of their work, and probably paid them something, but you can't measure
this in money. You're risking your life, and he brought some food and smuggled it to the wires as
my mother called it. And my mother was the one who went out at night and risked her life and
once in a while got some food. And so they survived. My uncle died en route and my grandfather
died the first winter and Shrensil died and I'm sure other cousins that were more distant.



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[00:08:07]

Menczer: After the war they made their way back slowly to Bucharest. My father survived and
they hid him a lot. He was more sick, he got sick. But he survived, and they hid him a lot
because as the war was being lost and the Ukrainian guards ran away, they also left while the
war was still on because the Russians were advancing. And if my father had been there they
would have taken my father into the army to fight. So they left and they over a couple of months
straggled their way back and ended up in Bucharest with other members of the family from other
parts of Romania who were deported to a camp called Mogilev. My mother's brother and her
nephew and niece -- two brothers, and four nephews and nieces. They all ended up back in
Bucharest. This wonderful picture of all of the brothers who weren't deported, the three brothers
who weren't deported, and then my mother and father and aunts and uncles. Two aunts and
uncles and another brother and that's a nice picture on the steps in Bucharest about 1947. Then
everybody dispersed. Two of my uncles went to Israel and two of my uncles went to South
America. My parents came to Canada where her two brothers had come in the 20s, so they
sponsored them. They waited a year in Paris and en route to Paris, as an interesting little side
story, the boat stopped in Israel. They went I guess through the sea and into Marseille and then
went up to Paris. When they went into Haifa my father's nephew and niece who were already in
Israel and his brother and sister who were early Zionists all came to see him on a boat. My father
wanted to jump ship and my mother said "it's 1948, we've just come from war." War was on the
horizon so they didn't stay in Israel and they ended up coming to Canada. They came to Canada
in January 1949 and I was born in November 50.

[00:10:31]

Menczer: I was I think somewhat of a miracle baby. My mother was 43 years old. She went to
the doctor because she felt she had the flu and was feeling sick and was throwing up. The doctor
said "well, you know, maybe...Have you had your period recently? Have you had your cycle?"
She said "no, I really can't, I'm malnourished and probably early menopause as well." Let's see
anyhow. And here I am the kind of porcelain child that was born at that time. So that's a bit of
the -- if there's more detail you need I can tell you -- but that's a bit of the overview of how they
ended up in Canada.

Stanger-Ross: Did you have siblings?

Menczer: Nope, I was an only child. My mother went to work two weeks later. My uncles had a
-- as was classic in the 50s -- a family clothing store and my mother was skilled and went to
work as a bookkeeper, sales, everything-kind-of-person. And my father also had a second store
and he went to work a little later also managing. They opened a second store in Ottawa. So that's
where we were, this fairly tight-knit family. It's an interesting -- I know your audio can't see the
picture, but it maybe tells you all you need to know about my father. There's my favourite picture
of him, probably taken in the mid-1950s when we went up to Ste. Agathe which was outside
Montreal which was a resort area. It's a picture of my father standing next to a sign that says
"Christian clientele only." That was my father, after what he survived and come to this great
country -- this was the sign and I think he was making a statement there. So that's a favourite
picture I keep.



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[00:12:17]

Menczer: There's a lot of sadness in that because when I was about five, my father got sick and
he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. They did surgery -- I think I was about five years old at the
time -- and surgery at that time was like chainsaw stuff. He had a Dr Wilder Penfield who was
probably the godfather of surgery. So they did that surgery and that was obviously a major blow
to our family and he got better and he recovered but after about three years later the tumor came
back. It was aggressive and he died just after I was nine years of age. I didn't know much about
that because at that time you sort of kept kids away. So it was kind of one more tragedy and
difficulty that my mother had to bear. So I was basically raised by my mother from nine. My
mother lived till -- she died in 1982 when she was 75. But she got, you know -- I'd finished law
school by then and actually had just a couple of years of practice under my belt so it gave her
some satisfaction to see that. But it's quite sad. That's how life goes and she was an amazing
woman and she would have loved my life here, she would have loved my life there and she just
didn't work out that way. And you can't...that's just how it was.

[00:14:03]

Menczer: Mostly what I know about that period in my parents' lives came somewhat from my
mother. She didn't sort of hide it. But it wasn't an omnipresent -- at least consciously. I think
certainly subconsciously and operating under the surface there was a pretty big message of
basically, you know, don't fuck up. I've got enough on my plate having gone through this and
now I'm a widow. Just be a good boy, and that was at a minimum an unconscious message that I
picked up. Be good in school, don't get arrested. All down the line. Which I mostly did. That
aside, I'm not minimising it, that's a piece, but it wasn't -- I've got friends and I've spoken to
them, that are children of survivors where there's this sort of heavy weight in the household. You
knew Giddy and Giddy and I became quite close friends in a short time. We were only friends,
close friends, for about a year and a half before he passed away. He would tell me about his
experience and it was this sort of constant black cloud over the table, from his father. Shattered
by it. That wasn't my experience. My mother did absolutely her best and at the same time she
didn't shy away from talking about it at an appropriate time, whether we were watching
something on television or whether there was something that came up, she would tell me
something. She would tell me the story. So I thought that part was certainly a healthy way in
which she didn't bury it, and yet she didn't bury me with it. The other elements, I think it was -- I
don't know, I'm not a psychologist -- but I think it was as much or more than the fact that my
father died. You know, just when you're starting to get -- here was this miracle of life after what
they'd gone through and then just when -- it takes several years to get... -- just when they were
getting their feet on the ground and adjusting to this boom, you know, this incredible tragedy
hits. So I, you know, admire and love her and feel sad about that. So some of the information I
have is from her.

[00:16:39]

Menczer: The other great source is, I told you, my mother's niece was deported with them as
well. Her father died early on in the process and her mother kind of went into more of a shock.
She was a young woman and she had this teenager. Her husband was a bit older and, yeah, it was



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just her own emotional makeup. So my mother basically cared for -- Nelly was my cousin. And
they all survived together as a teenager. And then Nelly went with her mother to Australia where
an uncle sponsored them and she met an American medical student and ultimately married him
and moved to Cincinnati and had a family. We're very close with Nelly. And her mother came
later and actually lived with us in Ottawa for a couple of years, waiting for her American papers.
But we always stayed very close.

*phone buzzes*

Stanger-Ross: Sorry, I have to check this just in case Ilana gets called to a birth. But that is not
that.

Menczer: So, Nelly was very close with my mother and very close with me. She lived until...10,
15 years ago. We were very very close and she came to visit a lot. And even after my mother
passed away we stayed really close. And she told me a lot of these stories and stories from before
the war about what a rich life it was. She was a young teenager, about 13 or 14 or so. It was so
great to go to her cool aunt and uncle and hangout and then with her friends. I actually have
some taped interviews with Nelly that I did in Chicago that I just found. So that's kind of a bit of
the background and the source of information I had. My father did some writing. He wrote some
short, like, vignettes in Yiddish and translated them and got help translating others. Those are
really interesting and I've used those in some of the commemorations that I'll tell you about.

[00:18:40]

Stanger-Ross: A couple of the people I've talked to are children of survivors also. Although in
some senses it doesn't directly -- well, I think it does relate to what I'm doing. I've sought to
understand how that awareness was experienced. You've given a sense broadly of that, but I
guess I try to get my head around it. There's a sense of your family's history and then a sense of
this world event that comes into view -- "oh, okay I'm connected with this major historical
tragedy." Do you recall what it was like as a kid, what your consciousness was?

[00:19:36]

Menczer: Yeah, I think I had some consciousness of it certainly ‘cause it wasn't hidden. I've had
friends where they didn't even know, their parents wouldn't even say anything. Some didn't even
know or acknowledge they were Jewish, it was so deep the trauma. That wasn't my experience
and at the same time I wasn't immersed in it and living in it. I don't even know if my parents
were at Yom HaShoah commemorations, you know. That's not part of my awareness. I think my
parents were overwhelmed with sort of the new life. My father did some writing I think still. So
my kind of consciousness was, yes, this happened. But it happened and it's done. It happened and
it was terrible and it happened and nothing more. I didn't have a great connection to it until I was
-- probably almost in my later 20s. I went to Israel for the first time when I was 22 and met --
most of my father's family is in Israel. So I hadn't met any of them really other than one distant
cousin from my Bar Mitzvah in the States who came. But I hadn't met any of them and they're all
in Israel and I went there and I met his brother and his sister and my first cousins who were all a
generation older than me because my parents were old when I was born. My second cousins are



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my contemporaries and -- wow, you know -- this was me and who I am. I went to the Holocaust
museum -- I can't remember the name at the moment, my brain...So there was a greater
consciousness there and really I started to get, I think, more connected. I had a friend in Ottawa,
a friend called Bernie Farber who actually became very involved with Congress and this in
Toronto and a very big advocate and this became his life. He was a social worker. We became
friends and we hungout a bit and one time he said "why don't you come to this meeting? We get
together as children of survivors." "I don't know, that's not really my thing," you know. I don't
know if I said it, "I don't need the therapy." He said, "no it's not like that, we just kind of get
together and come, you know." He was my buddy and we used to hangout and do crazy stuff so I
thought "I'll go and I'll try this potluck dinner." I went and I think that was a big change for me
because all of a sudden I went and we each introduced ourselves and a bit about our background.
All of I sudden -- wow -- I was among these people who understood.

[00:22:19]

Menczer: I didn't have to explain, you know. They really understood when I -- they understood.
They were like me. They were, you know, different of course and most of them had much more
stable, parents were younger, they came, parents were still alive, probably better off financially,
all those things. But it didn't matter. They got it. That I think was a trigger for me and that must
have been in the late 70s, early 80s probably. Maybe early 80s. So it became -- we'd regularly get
together. I became a little more active in the Yom HaShoah commemoration there.

Stanger-Ross: This is in Ottawa?

Menczer: In Ottawa. I remember reading one of my father's stories at the Holocaust
commemoration and printing it in the Jewish bulletin. The equivalent of -- well, they don't have
them here but the one in Vancouver, the Jewish Review. I remember my father printed one of his
stories, the Seder, in the loam hut of a Seder they had when they were straggling back from the
camp in the Ottawa Citizen, about 1957. I have a copy of that. So my father was active during
that time, but it didn't connect as a young child. In the early 80s, that was a trigger. I remember
going with Bernie and a couple of other friends -- two other friends -- to New York, there was a
big conference of Holocaust commemoration second generation. It was the first time I'd gone to
anything like that. It was wonderful, it was overwhelming. It was amazing. We marched on the
Paraguayan embassy. They were harbouring a war criminal, you know. It was such an eye-
opener. So I think those were the times where it really came into my conscious, my late 20s and
30s. I maybe had a little more growing up and a little more -- but that's when it really started and
it never really changed from that.

Stanger-Ross: This wouldn't have been a topic you encountered in school in Ottawa.

Menczer: Nope, no. I have no sort of memory of it ever being mentioned in school. Even in high
school. I liked history, I was a history major when I went to university. Obviously I knew there
was a war, obviously I knew there was a Holocaust, but it was one line. I have no recollection at
all, I have no recollection of being bullied or attacked for this. I do have a recollection of when I
was young, my parents spoke Yiddish in the house and spoke with accents and took a while to
get English. I remember crossing the border once and saying "well, I'm Canadian and they're



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born somewhere else." Being very -- ashamed's not the word, that's wrong. I had no shame about
it. But just, this was very different, and this was new. But I don't remember anything of that. Any
real negative thing. It's more that what I do remember is when he died all of a sudden I was
different than everybody, you know. I didn't have a father and all those things. That's what I
remember but I don't remember anything that really sticks in my mind that was either negative or
a positive.

Stanger-Ross: Were you part of a Jewish community in Ottawa?

[00:25:59]

Menczer: Yup, we were part. We belonged to a synagogue, an Orthodox synagogue, the main
one. My father liked to go when he was sort of convalescing, he liked to go during daily services
and so. They had a Mincha and Maariv, and between Mincha and Maariv, it was classic, they
stayed there and did a little bit of study and they had an associate Rabbi and my father liked that
because I think he was quite intellectual. I used to go with him and that's quite a fond memory,
going with him and sitting there and hearing them arguing in Yiddish. So I still speak some
Yiddish ‘cause I learned it. We were associated with that but we weren't terribly connected cause
it really was sort of, you know -- I was going to say classic 1950s but it still exists in some
Synagogues where there's a real hierarchy based on money and all of those things. My parents
didn't sort of buy into that at all. My father liked to go during weekdays and I don't remember
weekends. So we were connected to the Jewish community and we were part -- my parents are
buried in the Jewish cemetery in Ottawa. I had my Bar Mitzvah there. So we were connected but
we were sitting in the very back rows *laughs* of this very big synagogue and the Rabbi was,
you know, he wasn't a Rabbi for all the people, let's say. He did his job and he was there and he
did it. But there was no sort of emotional connection and I wasn't particularly fond of him.

Stanger-Ross: Was the Holocaust a topic at the synagogue or Hebrew school?

[00:27:28]

Menczer: To be honest, I don't remember. I mean it must have been, something around Yom
HaShoah. I went to Cheder, I didn't go to day school, I went to afterschool Cheder and had a
wonderful teacher called Jacob Gordon who was legendary and he trained me for my Bar
Mitzvah but I don't -- there must have been something but I honestly don't remember. Obviously
it didn't leave a big impression. In my secular school, same thing. I have no -- it's interesting that
you ask, that I have no recollection of anything. From either one, which is quite astounding when
I look back sort of fifty, sixty years ago. But, I mean, isn't that a bit of a paradox? It was so close
in time to the war yet there was...I don't remember anything. So there was so little education, so
little memorialisation when it was so close. And now as it's getting -- I don't think it's just my
consciousness. I'd be interested in that aspect of other research that you see. I don't know if it's
just my consciousness but I'm a sample, you know, and I was engaged in school, I did well in
school, so it wasn't as if I was kind of a slacker. I couldn't have been stoned at that time at the
back of my high school class. I was engaged, I was active, I was successful at school, so I was
aware of what was going on and nothing sticks at all. One thing I'll tell you though about how
my mother raised me, and even when my father was alive. As I said we weren't well off, we



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weren't homeless or anything, but we were poor and I never lacked for anything materially at all,
so it's a tribute to them. We had an apartment and there was an extra room in the apartment so we
lived near the university so right from a young age, from as long as I could remember, there were
roomers, we had someone renting a room there. And right from the beginning -- I remember this,
you asked me what I remember about memorialisation: nothing. But I remember this: we had
when my father was alive, an old lady who was a Quaker. We had a Gypsy who was living there
-- "gypsy"...a Roma, known as Gypsy at the time. We had students. A student that I remember.
And then after my father died we continued this because we needed money as well. We had right
off the boat an east Indian student from Gujurat living there and we had a German fellow living
there for a while. And on and on and on. Probably the most difficult roomer there was there was
this rich kid from Montreal, right, who was spoiled and just a real challenge. Not a challenge, but
you know what I mean. Didn't really engage much. Then my mother moved. She got a small war
reparation, bought a small house years later, and she still had a roomer at that time. And she had
a black student living there too, a west Indian student still when we were living near the
university. Then when she moved out to the suburbs it was a little harder to get a student, but she
had someone. So there was this rainbow of people living there and the 50s, you know. You're a
single woman, you have a stranger from India come and live in your home. My mother looked
like she didn't understand. That's what I remember and that's what I talk about if I talk about this.
It's amazing to come from that experience and be truly colour blind, in all aspects. It became a
part of the family, whether it was a medical student from Newfoundland who lived with us or a
chemistry student from Gujurat, or a German who was a traveller who lived in Canada for six
months to save some money and travel around the world some more, or a Roma, you know. All
ages, colours, beliefs, and this was normal. One the one hand there was no real education about
this and on the other hand my education was in the home about the way we had to act which I
thought was extraordinary from someone who had been through that experience, to not have the
bitterness. My mother had friends who were Germans in Ottawa, and we'd hangout with the kids
and I think she sewed or something, I can't remember the connection. It wasn't like this was her
best friend, but these were just people they knew. I knew the kids, I remember going, hanging
out with the kids, hanging out with the family sometimes. So I thought that was, looking back at
it, a tremendous capacity that my mother had. That's a roundabout way of saying not much in
school but a lot in life in the other way about lessons of kindness and generosity. She spoke often
about the people who were kind to her, the man who came to the wire and risked his life to bring
them food. She spoke about that more than she spoke about those who came and took my father's
friend away and killed him.

[00:33:17]

Menczer: In hindsight you'd wish you could go back now with the knowledge that I have now.
She died when I was 31. 31 I was still pretty immature I think, even though I was a lawyer who
had done some big cases. It's not about that, it's about growing up and so I was just beginning to
get engaged in this a little more and so, yeah, if I had my kind of perspective now it would be
wonderful to have this conversation with her now. It's just one of those things. But, yeah. So that
was that part of my life.

Stanger-Ross: You were describing in your 20s and early 30s, you started to connect with other
children of survivors and you went to a couple of these events. What followed from that?



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Menczer: I was quite involved with the second-generation group, as I say. We went -- maybe
half a dozen of us -- went to New York and partied and went to the meetings and just had a great
time and I thought wow. I was really inspired by all of this. I'm pretty active, I think I got
involved with the more formal community stuff, I don't know if I was on a board yet. But I spoke
at one of the commemorations and read one of my father's stories when I was still in Ottawa --
must have been the early 80s. Then in ‘84 I met a woman from Vancouver and moved to
Vancouver. We were here for a year while she finished school and then we travelled for a year.
Then we came back and settled in East Van in the fall of 86 and I became involved -- I don't
know how soon after, but certainly within the next year -- I became involved with the Holocaust
commemoration activities in Vancouver. I think I sat on the board one year of the VHEC. This
was just getting setup. I'm an organiser by default sometimes. But they'd had a pretty moribund
second generation group going -- it seems I get attracted to things that are moribund and try to
reinvigorate a bit. So I got involved with that group and got some energy going around it and we
got together and looked for the same kind of thing. Building on the experience of Ottawa, it
wasn't a therapeutic group. There's a place for that, but it wasn't where I was at. I don't think I've
ever -- a little bit when I've done some therapy about just life issues, it's come up as a component
of that. But there are a lot of other issues about which I think are more dominant. Well, I
wouldn't say more. That was a big issue in terms of shaping who I am and the working through
the bumps and bruises we all get when growing up. Certainly that was a big piece but an equally
big piece, if not bigger, was being so much younger than everyone else in school. Like finishing
high school when I was 16 and starting second year university when I was 16 and graduating law
school when I was 22 and having my law office when I was 24. That was a much bigger issue
about not fitting in and not being emotionally ready to do what I was ready academically to do.
Those two were kind of the big piece, that was a big piece, so it was just one piece so it came up
a bit in that. So the group in Vancouver was also as much an activity and, not commemoration
based, but active with activities. We'd bring in speakers. I remember Saul Rubinek is a family
friend from Ottawa, we grew up with the family and Saul had written a book. I don't know if you
know who he is. But his parents had been hidden during the war and Saul is an actor and became
a reasonably well-known actor in Hollywood and Canada. So he wrote a book about his parents'
experience and then he made a movie for a half hour TV show that -- I can't remember what it's
called -- but it was about -- he made a movie and then brought it down to 30 minutes for like a
serious half hour documentary type of show. Like The Nature of Things except about social
matters. It's quite well-known, I've forgot its title now, about his parents. I contacted him in
Toronto and said come to the West Coast sometime. So he came over and he talked to our group
and we watched the movie and had a discussion. SO organised things like that and got involved
with VHEC. So that's what I did in Vancouver, so that's how it carried over and did that for
several years, about 4 or 5 years with the second-generation group.

Stanger-Ross: Do you recall what was compelling to you about continuing to get together with
second generation folks?

[00:38:34]

Menczer: I think the experience of them understanding. In an analogy, it's kind of like what I'm
going through now. My wife passed away in December and I have good friends and people I
know, everyone is supportive, the community's supportive, but the ones who really get it and the



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ones who really understand, you know, I met a friend in a support group I went to when my wife
was dealing with cancer and he was the same. He lost his wife two months later. I would be the
same, empathetic and caring, but the ones who have gone through it really kind of understand
and really get it in a way that people are fortunate not to get it until it happens. It's neither good
nor bad, it's just the way it is. So I really do accept all the support and kindness that I have, and
it's wonderful believe me. And the ones who really get it are the few people who live it. I think it
was the same here. Being with people who had lived this experience. And their experiences were
different and some were much more severe, some were much more hidden, some were in
between, and just sharing that and learning that people had gone through what I'd gone through
with different experiences was really interesting to me. And comforting as well to just be able to
talk about this and share in an environment where you're not -- it's like the grieving thing and
you wonder how many times people need to hear this over and over again, what I'm really going
through and someone was going through it they get that you do need to say it and it does need to
be heard. So the same thing with the Shoah stuff. When people, you know, "wow, it's terrible,
how did it happen, we're supportive and we're empathetic. But again? you want to talk about it
again? And you want to tell the story again?" You know, that kind of thing. I think that was very
compelling to me on a personal level, on an emotional level, that this was not only a safe place
but a place that was really wanting to hear and share that experience and I could offer the same
to them. Not only to validate it but to say that this is a place and if people didn't like it they
stopped coming.

Stanger-Ross: So I guess you had started to feel a need to share or hear those kinds of --

Menczer: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I think I saw it as a way of sharing my own experience but
also I think of honouring my parents experience. I think it's really important -- in a roundabout
way I'll either say it now or say it later. I think it's really important that people know. My parents,
my family lived through this. If I don't speak of it and I don't tell people about it, I'm not
honouring that. I'm not honouring the victimhood. I'm honouring the difficult experience and the
strength. I can't do much to honour the now other than recounting that story for them and those
who died. I think I felt that way back then, that I'm proud of my parents and sad for what they
had to go through but so proud of them. And the enormity of it, just it always strikes me when
we start to talk about it, how rich and full that life was for Jews in Europe. My family is a
microcosm of it. My parents had a great life, they both had good jobs, they married late, they
didn't have kids, they wanted kids, it didn't happen that way. They had good friends, they'd
hangout with their friends, they'd have parties, they'd go to cafes, they'd talk about their ideas.
What a rich life. There was music, there was literature, there was art, and all of a sudden, you
know, after hundreds of years of that, it's gone. It's just in a span of, what?, you're the historian.
35 or early 30s. Ten, twelve years? Fifteen years? All of that it's just like you've excised the
whole -- it's a whole different world. And then everyone is dispersed around the world. My
family is dispersed all around the world and not together. The enormity of that still overwhelms
me. And so I don't know, my mother was always very big on family. When I went to Israel, "you
didn't look up your 14th cousin?" You know. I translated that. So that's part of why I think --
maybe this fits a little late -- but that's part of why I do what I do. I'm just still trying to
understand the enormity of the loss. Not just numbers of 6 million. And I'm not trivialising that
number. Families lost many more members. I can't even comprehend that being a part of it. But
the enormity of the whole sort of societal, social, economic, political, liberal, medical -- just the



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whole thing is just gone. You don't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. And everyone's all
around the world. I just think it's important to remember that and not just get -- I think it brings
the numbers to life when you talk about that and you realise that these were 6 million but 6
million people with lives, and 6 million individuals. And those individuals were in music, they
were in literature, they were in art, they were in medicine, they were in architecture, and they had
lives and they had families.

[00:44:55]

Menczer: That's the enormity of the loss I still can't comprehend.

Stanger-Ross: So we're in the 80s in Vancouver and you're organising second generation --

Menczer: and VHEC. So then I -- let me fast forward into the 90s. So that was late 80s and 90s
and that continued on. Then I started digging around and a couple of my father's other stories
showed up and I translated those with my cousin in Israel. I was there and she had them and we
sat down and did some translation and then I decided I wanted to start putting together and -- as I
say, I'd seen my cousin Nelly in Cincinnati and we were at a wedding and decided well, you
know, there's all this stuff going on with the Spielberg project and archiving and I decided I
wanted -- I did some audio tapes of her. She came to visit in Vancouver and I did a couple of
audio tapes, cassette tapes, of her telling these stories again ‘cause I realised she was the last real
link. My parents both gone, my family in Canada didn't know anything about it ‘cause they'd
come in the 20s, and they were all gone, so now it was the kids who were even more remote
from this. I wanted to know so I interviewed Nelly. It must have been the early 90s, early- to
mid-90s. I had two cassettes which I managed to salvage and got them more recently switched
over to junk drives and transcribed, so I have those interviews filling in those gaps. And then in
the mid-, late-, mid- 90s, we were in Chicago at a wedding and my cousin did a video interview
just talking with Nelly in the hotel room. I have those, I just found those as well. So I think that's
what I was doing. I was starting to -- "ok, I want to gather this stuff while I still have some
resources." I have a suitcase with sort of a bunch of papers from my parents, documents. I started
going through them and they had just set up the Holocaust Education Centre in Vancouver with
whoever was before me -- Creeker, I forgot her name but she was a lovely lady. I went to see her
and I gave them the documents, so I have all sorts of bits and pieces of documents. Identity
papers. I have some letters that were sent by my family before and after the war. They were in
German and I got a friend in Vancouver -- a woman called Helen Waldstein, I don't know if you
ever met Helen Waldstein. Wrote an interesting book called Letters from the Lost. And I saw
Helen Epstein in Vancouver in the 80s and she wrote the book about the children of the
Holocaust. It was the first book, the first sort of seminal book that was written about me. We
went to see her and I remember -- I went with my ex -- there was this older woman standing
beside us and all of a sudden she just starts to shake. We started talking and comforting her and
we became dear friends, called Helen Waldstein who has a very interesting story to tell and has
written a couple of books and is an academic. So I started gathering some of this stuff. That was
my activity in the 90s. I found these extra stories and not all of them are translated and I went to
the VHEC and asked for help and a fellow called David Shaeffer and a woman called Sheila
Barkuski and a man called Shia Mozer translated these stories for me. There are about half a
dozen, eight more in Yiddish and a few letters. If I have a regret it's that I didn't take more time



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to go and sit with them while they were doing it. It would have been a wonderful experience. So
I just saw the product. But I got to know David Schafer who was a child of survivors from
Bukovina. We became friends and he had a really amazing story to tell me. One of the papers I
gave him to translate was a letter and it basically said my father had been a teacher in 45 or 46,
for two or three months after the war. It was kind of a letter of certification or something. I never
knew this, I just never knew this about my father. I asked David about it, I called him I said "I've
never heard this. Can you tell me about this?" He said "well, that's what the letter said but I have
something even more to tell." "What's that?" "Well..." And he goes on and on about -- the war
was over but people were straggling back but still behind the fighting lines caught between
leaving camp and getting back home cause the war was still on so they'd stop in these abandoned
villages for two or three months until it was safe to go ahead. In this one village there a bunch of
little kids like him running around -- he was a teenager -- and a bunch of the adults decided they
should put together a makeshift school. This was a letter testifying that my father had been a
teacher at this makeshift school. Out of all the stories I've never heard this. Well, how do you --
it's just a one-page letter. How do you know all the details? He says "I was one of the kids at that
school." He didn't know my father but this was the time and the place. So there are all these
threads and that really intrigued me. So I became friends with David and Seedy and I actually
recorded David like this telling his story and a piece of it. I've got that transcribed too. That was
sort of my, I guess, activity in the late turn of the century. We moved to Victoria in 2010. Valerie
came out to Vancouver in 2005. So in that first kind of decade this was more -- I was doing a bit
more of this. Again, in hindsight, I'm not driven really and I'm not super focused in a positive
way I mean on something. I like doing things but I do them at my own pace. In hindsight I wish,
wow, I wish I'd kind of done more. I wish I'm not the sort of dive-in -- I never got a graduate
degree cause we would have had to write a thesis and that. I don't know. That's just not
something that is easy for me to do. In hindsight I wish I'd investigated a little more. Even now I
see David maybe once a year, once every two years. Why don't I go in and spend more time to
do this while there's a living resource? There was a woman who wrote a book about Bershad that
my cousin Nelly gave to me. One day I thought I'd call the publisher and sure enough she was
still alive and I actually spoke with her on the phone and she writes about the camp where my
parents were. It doesn't mention my parents but one of my father's cousins who was a doctor
there and we had a talk and I just filed it away. Then I thought "why don't I just get on a plane
and go meet her?"

[00:52:28]

Menczer: I still have a lot. So I have all this, all these pieces. And I'd like to put them together.
It's been on my mind for a while. It really is, as I work less, to put it together. Book is too big a
word but just put it together for history and for any of my family that's interested and more just
to have cause I have a sense -- I mean if I don't do it nobody's going to do it. So I have these
interviews with Nelly, I have this stuff with David Schafer, I have these letters that were written,
I have my father's stories. I have an interesting parallelism story about a Seder we did in Nepal
that paralleled my parents and my ex wrote a beautiful story about that that was published in a
couple of places. So I have all sorts of pieces that I want to kind of put together in a way. So that
kind of brings it a little more up to date. When I moved to Victoria, I wanted to stay in touch
with this -- but it's a big adjustment, we were both 60 when we moved here and that takes a while
to get involved. I got involved with Emanu-El and I knew they did commemorations so I'd go to







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and what we do going forward. And we all shared that perspective very much. So that was the
first thing we all shared as an ideal.

[01:04:02]

Menczer: The second thing was, "it's not just us." I'm still sort of struggling and with all of the
stuff going on now about the missing and murdered women, you know, it's a genocide and what
does genocide mean and this big debate. It's tough and I haven't sort of sorted it all out,
separating my emotional reaction to this. This is unique in history and you dilute it by calling
other things, but wait a minute, there are others. But we all shared the idea that it does not dilute
the enormity of the Shoah by recognising there are other people under attack too. And the way
you deal with that is not to build walls and be insular, and them and us. The way you do it is
build bridges. So we took that perspective and worked it into the philosophy behind our
programs that you reach out to the broader community, it isn't just getting forty Jews in a room.
That you reach out to all of the political, legal, law enforcement. Faith groups, community
groups in the community. And you engage them in this and say we're all in this together and it's
the old story, they came for the Communists and I didn't stand with them. This is about us but it
could equally be about you. And recent historical events and all historical events, that's what --
so we took an active or conscious reaching out. So that was the other piece that -- those I think
are two of the main kind of components and it's proven to be very sort of -- there aren't
adjectives, successful isn't the word. But you know, it's proven to be a very productive and
meaningful way of doing this. As you've seen we get, the Shul is packed. We probably get 150-
180 people for Kristallnacht and we probably get 120-140 people for Yom HaShoah from across
the spectrum. Young, old, we have the Premier come, we have the Chief of Police always come,
we have, you know, bishops come, we have the Imam come. It basically is on the calendar for all
the components of Victoria. And the media pays more attention. It's always in the newspaper
now, they did a TV interview this year. They interviewed Julius and me for the local news. So
it's in the consciousness of the Victoria community. And that's really good.

[01:07:04]

Menczer: To me that's a tribute to our parents, it's a tribute to my father, it's a tribute to my
mother. My mother did not see us and them, she saw people. To me that's the greatest protection
that you can have when you know your neighbour. So my uncle in Bucharest knew the priest
next door, you know -- there are good priests and bad priests but was a true man of faith and
realised the darkness and evil of what was going on and said "no there are no Jews here." That's
cause he knew his neighbour. Rabbi Harry is a great person to be involved in this because he has
tremendous outreach to the other faith communities and all the communities. So that's the
approach that we've taken and I think it's been a good and healthy one and I also believe in sort
of keeping it dynamic. You came to the potluck -- I remember that from Vancouver. If I work
with Indigenous communities -- food is the great thing, whether it be a Jewish community or
Indigenous community food is the thing that brings people together. So you also have to -- when
you go to these events and they tear at your kishkas, as my mother would say. We haven't done
anything afterward -- it's just something about what do we do, where do people go, you know.
Usually I'll get together with Elisheva or something, we'll go for a lunch or a coffee or
something. You can't have this emotionally charged -- well you can, you do -- but this



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emotionally charged event and then go home and watch the basketball game right away. You
gotta wait half an hour or something. I like doing the potluck because it's serious, it's emotional
stuff, but I also think it's important to get together and share food -- exactly what we did. So
that's a piece of it all too, I mean, I was given life and life is a lot of things. It's not to forget but
it's also not to be trapped in that. At the beginning you asked me about what it was like growing
up and it wasn't about not knowing and it wasn't about not acknowledging it, but it also wasn't
about being trapped. And I kind of feel the same about this. It's just come together really, really
well. I dropped out for a year, my wife was sick, and you know, it's not about one person and I
never think it's about one person. I never believed that and we never acted that way. I'm a pretty
good coordinator and just following up and that. But everyone else -- that's the other reason.
There's always been a different facilitator. Maybe someone's done it twice or something, but for
the most part, you know, it's been everyone. Robert's done it, Esa's done it, Rick's done it, Julius
has done it, Peter's done it -- I'm missing someone. Nathan is the only one but he doesn't want to.
And I've done it. So, it's also about that. It's about keeping it dynamic. I'm sort of, I think --
Giddy would've been happy with what we've done with it. I didn't do it for Giddy's memory but
he was the inspiration for sure. I think it's evolved in a really good way. The potluck this time,
there were new people who got more involved. Francis was here, a couple of people couldn't
come. The thing I think about now -- and probably this is your next piece -- is, okay, what now?

[01:11:05]

Menczer: So there are two pieces of what now, because this has been, I don't know, a good five
or six years for me and I tend to run a kind of cycle like many people. It's been a pretty big piece
of my volunteer commitment and so it's time for the succession, for someone else to take greater
roles or more people to take greater roles. So there's that piece: thinking of the group itself, both
in terms of age and just involvement now. It's wonderful now, I have Francis, someone with lots
of energy and who's learning and some young people so I think we're conscious of that in kind of
a -- I won't say a subtle way -- but just in a conscious way. The other piece that I think about a
lot is -- we started to talk about this and I'm sure as an academic you're aware of it -- so the
survivors are fewer and fewer. The survivors and the child survivors like Julius, I mean the war
ended 75 years ago so it doesn't take a lot of math to know that there are fewer and fewer. The
ones that are there are very aged or infirm or were very very young when it happened. SO you
have the Juliuses, you have David Schafer who must be in his mid-80s and he was a teenager and
there's Rob Waisman, a couple of others. But they're in their 80s now. So it's not going to be long
before they're not available. So what do we do now? Even the second generation, most of us are
getting Canada Pension Plan. I'm 68, going to be 69 in the fall. People are in their 60s. Rick is a
contemporary. Look around, even the young spries like Nathan, they're in their 50s. So that's
what -- there's time there but in a blink of an eye we're going to be -- okay, second issue. Now it
starts to get very remote. I just think of the immigrant experience when you look at language in
the immigrant. I speak some Yiddish cause of my parents but if I had kids, probably a few swear
words that's it. I look at the Italian immigrant experience, I have Italian immigrant friends. First
generation, second generation understood, kids, pfft. Grandchildren don't. Indigenous, same
thing. It starts to get very remote from the experience so how do we -- I see a couple of
challenges -- how do we deal with that reality to keep it dynamic and informative and
sufficiently real? The second part is there's a new generation where commemorative events
where you go there and however you do it, that isn't the way they do things. You educate



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differently and you commemorate differently. Through social media, through other forms. So I
think if we're going to keep this alive and dynamic and real we have to think of creative and new
ways to teach the experience and whether we call it the lessons -- I don't really like that, it
sounds too... -- but you know, to teach the experience and to use that to benefit our community
and society, larger society, because you're not going to be able to do it the same way, you're not
going to be able to do it by publishing Zachor out of the centre once a month with stories. You're
not going to do it by having two commemorations a year, as good as they can be, it's not going to
be enough. So those are the two kind of challenges that I see and we've started to think about it. I
was really excited about this idea that Zelda came through play, an education in schools,
something interactive, something -- I keep using the word dynamic, but it's not static. The event
was not static, memory should not be static, so the commemoration should not be static
otherwise it will be lost and it'll die. Then what kind of tragedy is that? It's tragedy upon
tragedies. Tragic that it's happened, in a way it's even more tragic that you lose the memory of it
or you lose the opportunity to, at least -- you'll never stop it -- but at least give people a "wait a
minute," you know, and stop something before it gets too terrible. There are white supremacists
now but they're not dominant. Part of that is you keep the consciousness of what history has
taught us and not become a victim of history. So I think that's the challenge that locally we have
at the VSP and I think people are aware of it and quite creative and it's also a challenge
nationally and globally frankly. It's a scary world out there. Every day I pick up the paper and it's
another right-wing, uber-nationalist government coming in. Not just in Europe. In Quebec. It's
pretty thinly veiled. You're a history professor, I'm not telling you anything you don't know. You
probably know more than me and could articulate it better than I could. But it's a scary world, it's
changing. The politics of Israel doesn't help this in that way. It kind of feeds into that model,
except it's Jews. So you get attacked from all sorts of -- you get attacked from the Antisemitic
attacks and then from the progressives

. And how do you say "well look at the terrible things that were
done to us" when you have the symbol of our people, our country, as doing terrible things to
other people. But we don't talk about that. We also consciously -- I guess this is the other piece
that's useful maybe in your research to know -- I think we made a pretty conscious decision when
we got together with the Shoah project that the politics of Israel and that and the politics was not
part of what we're doing. We all have our views. You got a little hint of my thinking of it, but
that's not what this is about. I think that was too much of what it was about, the way it was being
done before. It diverted from the importance of the message because if you're talking about,
"well we have to..." I support Israel. I love Israel, I love the country, I love my family there, I
don't support the government, I don't support the politics. But I love the country, it's not a
question for me and I don't engage in a lot of political discussion on Israel because it doesn't give
me anything or it doesn't have anything to give me beyond a discussion -- my take on it is I love
the country, I believe and I totally support the country and I love the people. I completely don't
support the government and what they're doing, I think it's wrong. Beyond that I don't have too
much more to get involved with. When you start mixing the two and that was happening, I don't
think it's helpful for what you're doing because it becomes an Israel message rather than a
Holocaust commemoration message. It's about commemoration, education, and protecting as
best we can through that education the reoccurrence of something of that magnitude. That's the
way I balance and think about it in my kind of world view and from my experience. I feel like I
have a license to talk about these things and say some of these things that are hard because I'm
the child of survivors. I can speak about reaching out to other people and I can speak to



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acknowledging the racist and hateful attacks on other groups because that was my family. For
someone telling me that "well, wait a minute, it's about us." Well, I'm us. So part of us feels very
much this way. You hear it from Robert, you hear it from Nathan, you hear it from Rick, you
hear it down the line, you hear it from Julius, and these are people who have -- no one needs to
tell me about the propriety -- I shouldn't say that, I won't be so arrogant and say no one needs to
tell me, but I don't listen very much.

Stanger-Ross: *laughs*

Menczer: That's not right either! You know what I mean. I listen to what people say but I'm not
sort of projecting my ideas to an experience that isn't mine. It is my experience. So I can hear
what other people say and people might have different perspectives. Maybe I can learn from
them and that's fine but I can say something like this because my parents went through this, I
went through it as a child of survivors. So I do feel legitimacy in what I'm saying because it's
coming from the experiential experience. It comes from a father who after that could stand in
front of a sign that said "Christian clientele." Not a sign that says "only Jews and we gotta build a
wall." From a mother who took in whoever came and seemed like a good person, and didn't say
"wow this person's a German, they caused my family terrible stuff, they killed my father, they
killed my brother. This person is a Roma, you should be afraid of this person because of, you
know." That wasn't my experience and there's not enough gratitude I can give to my parents for
instilling that in me. It's hard to understand how Jews who have been the subjects of attack can
see the answer as building walls and excluding others.

Stanger-Ross: I have one really narrow specific follow-up but I'm going to leave that one ‘cause
I want to stick with some of the bigger things that we're talking about and come back to it. So, I
guess one question I have of a broader scope is around the aims of the memorial events that you
help to organise, are those aims -- you've talked about a couple of different aims. One is to
honour your parents and other survivors and victims. Then another is oriented towards the
politics of today. I feel like you've articulated that so I won't urge you to rearticulate, but I'm
wondering how a future concern about Antisemitism fits in relation to, say, these other --

Menczer: Yeah. I think it's very present in our minds and our consciousnesses in planning it. If
you look at the sort of talks or the introductions of facilitators there's always a reference to what's
going on today. Whether it's Pittsburgh or smaller events such as defacing synagogues or
whether it's the mosques -- that's not Antisemitism but, you know. It's very real, it's very present
in today. I think there's very much a consciousness about it. I think we don't try to make it the
sole focus. So there is a consciousness about it, and there's also a recognition of other attacks,
and the idea of building bridges and standing together when hatred is directed at any group. One
of the most powerful pieces that we've done is talk about this window that Carmel did and we
had representatives from the political leadership, the faith groups, and the law enforcement
groups all putting pieces back rebuilding this window, it was like a big puzzle, with about eight
pieces. It was very symbolic because at the time of Kristallnacht these were all the groups that
stood by. And now you have this repair of these same groups putting it back together. And same
thing the pledge of mutual respect and support was developed with Rabbi Harry in our group.
One of the most powerful moments was the next year when we did it and we had all these
representatives, from the Premier down to the faith groups, the police chief, we had Indigenous



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leaders there, all standing up and reading this together. That didn't happen in the 30s. If they'd all
stood together Hitler would've been certainly there, but he would have never come to power. I
won't say never but it would've been much more difficult for him to come to power to do all the
terrible things that the Nazi regime did. So I think Antisemitism is very much a part of it and
maybe it is a challenge and it's good to be reminded of this and not to -- I don't know another
word for dilute -- but not to...What do you do when you take one experience and you transpose it
onto another?

Stanger-Ross: Conflate?

Menczer: Yeah. Not to conflate it with the Muslim attacks and attacks on Muslims or the attacks
on LGBTQ community. It's not conflating this that it's all the same. They're not all the same. It's
funny cause as we talk about it it's kind of counterintuitive to the message, saying they're all the
same. Well they're not all the same but the common theme is hatred directed at a group because
they're the other, as Eli Wiesel -- was that he? It shows you the limitation of my scholarly depth
in this. But the common thread is people were attacked and families were attacked for who they
were or what their religious or political beliefs were, and if we can stand together to resist that I
think in some ways that's the best defense, to get to know your neighbours. So within that
framework or that superstructure is our particular attention to Antisemitism and I hope we don't
lose that and maybe it's a good reminder that maybe we have to come back to thinking is it
enough, are we conflated, diluted, that message -- it's become a mile long and an inch deep.
That's the way I talk about support for Indigenous issues in this country. I think it's a mile long
and an inch deep. It's like the carbon tax. It's like the environment. Everybody says "yeah it's
terrible, it's a crisis, we've got to do something, but when you have to pay more than your Netflix
subscription to remedy it no one wants to do that, or 75% don't want to do that.

[01:28:33]

Menczer: The Holocaust, the Shoah was directed at Jews. 6 million Jews were killed. All the
stuff I've talked about, a whole society of hundreds of years in Europe were destroyed, families
were strewn all around the world. I don't think there's been anything of that enormity, certainly in
modern history. What happened in Cambodia was terrible and there are elements of that that are
the same. But the enormity of that, that was largely political. This is religious, racial, all of those
things. The Rohingya -- you can go on. The Hutu and the Tutsi, you know. It seems like there we
go again, lucky as Jews, we got it all. So I think it is unique and I don't think certainly in our
work we ever forget that. But I don't think we should lose that. The other piece is as I'm thinking
about it, the other theme is that these are real people. We, a lot of the time, try to find the stories
of real people. I've read my father's stories and there were readings from some diaries and some
poems. We have the young people doing the readings and so by giving it a human face you get
past the -- no one can comprehend 6 million, I can't comprehend 6 million people dying. Not
even Toronto has 6 million people. Does that mean you put Toronto and Vancouver together? Or
Montreal? You think of the enormity of Toronto and that doesn't even cover it. All those people
are wiped out, all those people are gone. I can't imagine that. So when you bring it down to this
was this person, this was their story, this was this young girl who wrote this, this was this man
who was in the camp, this is what he wrote about that. So it's finding that sweet spot where you
recognise the enormity of the events and the tragedy of the events while humanising it to add the



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individual. And then you add the other layer of, okay, and then there were others, and there were
others today. So it's trying to give the proper proportion and balance to each of those components
which are all valid but if one gets too big -- you know, I spoke about my concerns about
[phonetically] roy-thew-stan, well it was too big about our experience and our tragedy and
Antisemitism today. That's all it was about. At the same time, if you make it all about what's
going on in the world today and every group today, you're not doing sufficient justice to the
Shoah part of the Victoria Shoah Project. So it's good to have ongoing reminders and it's why I
think it's good to have fresh energy in our group, it helps do that, so we don't get -- we have
different points of views. You have very political sort of points of view from one of the active
people in the group and so it's always tempering that while being respectful and figuring out,
"okay that's good." We don't have a really strong view about what you're saying, if we're going
too far this way. I think that maybe part of our reaction to what was being done before was so far
out of balance on one perspective that it was only about us and only about Antisemitism and
we've got to be vigilant and protective. In also trying to balance it we've got to be sure that we're
not so far away from the other. Again, I keep saying, you're a history professor, you know that.
History goes from one extreme just to the other. It comes back and politics and history work that
way.

[01:32:55]

Menczer: It's a good reminder and, yeah, I encourage you to remind us if you see this drift going
on.

Stanger-Ross: I am interested personally, as I've mentioned to you, this split that you've
described. You've probably described it quite fully in some respects. I think you have done this
but I want to make sure to ask how you would characterise that other approach



Menczer:

Stanger-Ross: Okay -- how you would characterise their approach or the ideas that animate it. I
guess with some folks maybe this is a leading question. I think I asked Rick in this way, if you
were trying to take a sympathetic view of the ideas that animate that approach, what are the
ideas?

Menczer: I think they want to make sure that people remember how graphic and brutal the
events were. That because the number 6 million is sort of incomprehensible, that if you show
people corpses stacked up on palettes and if you show people crematoria, then it's like "oh my
god, these were humans and they were turned into skeletons. They were starved, and then they
were burned or they were gassed alive." You know, the images of the cattle car. My parents were
in the cattle car. So my sense is they believe, and genuinely believe, that this is the way to
remind people of the brutality of the Shoah and what led to it and the brutality focused on
primarily the Jews, and the brutality of it and to shock people into saying "never again" because
it was so brutal. I never had that discussion with but, as you asked
me the question, thinking out loud the way I do unfortunately -- it would be better if I thought
first and then was out loud more often! But that's just the way it is. My guess is that would be



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one of the reasons. Numbers are meaningless and when they see the graphic images this will
remind them of how terrible it was. I don't know if they are looking for people to feel guilty or
just vigilant. I would hope vigilant more than guilty. So I'm guessing that's what it is. The [event]

, I haven't been more than once, maybe twice. It wasn't so good the second time.
Once in Vancouver I went several years and I accompanied a survivor sometime cause that's the
model they use, and I felt those were tremendous, those were great and they were packed and
engaged. The ones I went to here, and we're a smaller community as one person coming, the last
one I went to was -- kids just weren't engaged at all. I know Robert's gone to those kids and felt
very strongly that this is not working at all. So I think that's a part of it too, giving that the best of
intentions. Because I do believe that [they] have good intentions. I
respect how hard they worked for so many years to make this happen. So I respect that, I
appreciate it. I think it's kind of losing its impact. Even Willy Mays had to retire. I'm not saying
they have to retire but, you know, people come along. Sometimes it's better -- like if Willy Mays
retired a couple years before he did so that you're not a sort of old broken down centrefielder as
opposed to this extraordinary athlete that was magical. I think people still remember that, you
tend to forget the last couple years. I respect what they've done, I have no question as to their
sincerity. . But you know, business is
business and this was kind of business. I didn't ask him to be my friend. This was business, we
had a shared idea and it was challenging to work together, that was the interpersonal part. I think
it's important to be able to work together to attract people and to keep it going. I think it's
important to work together. But I think their motives have been very good, I think they've done
incredibly hard work, I think they've been deeply committed, and I think they believe this is the
way to do it.

Stanger-Ross: Here's my more narrow question about the Shoah project. I was there in 2017, I
want to say, and you talked about the packed room and all the representatives and so on. Was
that immediately the case or did it build? What was the experience when you were like
"what?!".

[01:39:29]

Menczer: Good question. I think the first year we did the first one was Yom HaShoah at the
cemetery in honour of Giddy. A lot of people from the community came out ‘cause it was in
honour of Giddy and I think we invited the broader community. There was a good turnout then, I
think it was a very powerful programme. And then, I don't know -- I think I did the first, I think I
facilitated that one. I think Kristallnacht, I think Elisheva did it. Again, it was a good turnout. I
don't remember at what point -- it's interesting, [phonetically] Dahvee Olo [Davjola] will know
cause she has the records, it would be a good question to ask her. When did we start...Francis
Aknai the shulright has the database to end all databases. CSIS would be well advised to get in
touch with Francis. She would send out notices but at some point I decided I would just write
invitation letters to all the political leaders, to the chief of police -- like write personal letters
cause you know you get a notice and your EA reads it and sometimes it gets to you and
sometimes it doesn't. But a letter has a little more impact. You write your standard letter then you
spend an hour cutting and pasting addresses and names and you make sure you don't write to
John Horgan and say "dear Christie," you know. So I sent out personal letters and I think that had
some impact. I had a friend who was a retired journalist and one of his friends is an editor with



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the Times Colonist, I met him at a lunch thing. Really nice guy, pretty low-key. So when it came
time I just called Bruce the editor, you know, "hi, I'm Mike's friend." "Oh yeah yeah we had a
nice chat." I said "I'm involved with this and we send the community notices, but do you think
you might get a reporter who's interested in doing a bit more of a story?" And he said "yeah let
me just check in" and I got a call from -- I forget his name now -- and he wrote a story and he
came for a year or two and now they write stories all the time. And now the TV. So I think it
slowly built but it didn't take long. It didn't take long to hit 100 people. I don't think it took long.
And then Rabbi Harry who is this incredible outreach person in the community. You build
bridges and I asked Harry, "why don't you reach out to the interfaith leaders? You're on the
interfaith council, why don't you see if they'll come?" Reached out to Hillel, talked to Carmel
who was tremendous, and all of a sudden there were eight or ten Hillel students handing out
pamphlets, active and involved and, you know, Carmel built the window. You reach out to
Hillel, you reach out to Helga and Charlotte, you get the university involved. So you've got the
interfaith community through Harry, you've got the academic community, you've got the student
community involved, you send out letters and you see what happens and none of that was being
done. I think it happened pretty quick, you know. The first event, because it was Giddy, I think a
lot of people from the Shul came out and then when they saw what the event was -- remember
people had been coming, but when you get sort of pounded with these numbing images, it's like
"what will I do tonight? Will I go to this or will..." you know. Maybe I'm being a little frivolous
but I think that's frankly what it came down to and when people saw, "wait a minute, there's
music at this event and it isn't necessarily dirge music and people are talking about something
that's relevant to my life and to today." There's a different tone. People became curious and then
we became I think part of the fabric and then rebuilt the relationship with the Shul and people got
energised. So I think it happened pretty quick, I think by the second or third event we were sort
of getting there. And then the events of the surrounding world, you know, also highlighted the
people. I didn't go, last, I didn't go to Kristallnacht because I was at home but that was right after
the Synagogue shooting and so people wanted a place to go. So it also becomes a place to go to
be together when -- and that was really the proximity of it, it was eerie but it's also a place to be
together when that happens. When there was a mosque, the shootings at the mosques, it wasn't
Kristallnacht but Harry engaged and Rick had engaged so when it came time for this they came
because they knew they were welcome, they knew it was a bond and a friendship in place. I think
the building of those pieces and those relationships also contributed to the higher attendance and
then the politicians start coming. And when the politicians start coming and they see, "wait a
minute, the faith leaders are here, their communal leaders are here, the police are here, there are
150 people here, I better be here." They came and not just cause of their political attendances,
you know. Rob Fleming came with his kids, all of them when it was just Rob Fleming in the
back row and the MLA Carol James would always come. Lana Popham would come with Sam
and John Horgan came and Andrew Weaver comes, and on down the line. I'm embarrassed, I
stood beside some of them and I said "oh yeah nice to meet you." "Hi I'm so and so." "Oh hi I'm
Lisa Helps, I'm the mayor." Oops -- I mean I don't even know who some of them are but they all
come. You just invite them and some will come.

Stanger-Ross: So what did that feel like or what were the discussions within the Shoah project
group? You had this acrimonious start, you launched these things, and then boom.

[01:46:15]



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Menczer: It was great. People felt really good. I think it creates a really good feeling because
people feel like -- well, they don't feel like, they're actually doing something. We try, and if we're
not we really need to be reminded, we're trying to walk the talk. In other words, if this is what we
believe then this is what we try and do. I think people felt good because it felt like we were
walking our talk. It was resonating and so people felt very validated, for "yeah, we're not wrong."
This way of teaching about the Shoah, of engaging, is working and it's working much better than
what had been done before and that creates a much safer environment for all of us in the
community, so I think people felt really good and had fun doing it. There's very little acrimony
within the group. It's quite wonderful. It is a group with different personalities -- we've had some
discussion about Hatikvah, we have quite different views about whether Hatikvah is appropriate
at these events or not. But we work those through in a way that nobody got up and left in a huff,
it was respectful and came to a place where we'd reached sufficient kind of consensus. The
classic consensus: "well, I may not agree but I'm not going to..." you know.

Stanger-Ross: Which was not to do Hatikvah?

Menczer: Not to do it, no. I don't think we do it at all. We've played a couple of times the
Bergen-Belsen one when they liberated the camps. There's a BBC recording which I think is
incredibly powerful, when the survivors come out and it's the survivors singing Hatikvah. We've
done it at Kristallnacht I guess and to me it was quite beautiful, with the whole Shul singing
Hatikvah as this powerful moment. Others in our community don't feel so comfortable with that
because it's not about Israel and it's not about Hatikvah. So we've had that discussion and we
haven't done it for a couple of years and I'm trying to remember at which event it might have felt
more appropriate than the other. But it's sort of off the radar now. Maybe some people don't
come because we don't. We get letters or emails, people saying "well, why'd you do this, you
didn't do this, you're talking about attacks on gays and lesbians and what does that have to do
with the Shoah?" But not a lot, I think overwhelmingly we get very positive feedback and a few
classically predictable voices are saying, you know, and I say that's fine. But no I think people
feel really good about it and they keep coming. You saw, there were a dozen people for the
potluck. Probably three or four others that probably certainly would've been here, whether for
being away or blah blah blah -- you know, legitimate reasons, it's not for lack of interest. So I
always thought we need a core of about a dozen. We have a couple younger people who are very
active, but Carmel moved to Vancouver -- you could get her a job at the university and she could
always come back, you know. We need a Carmel back. She drew in her gang of friends, about
half a dozen people. We always have the Habonim Dror connection but that's the piece where I
think we'd like to see and keep it engaging enough for them. They always participate -- a fellow
called Jake Sherman who was at the university was involved with us for a while and he's moved
to Nelson. It's hard to compete with being a ski bum in Nelson. But he stays in touch, so you just
keep the lines of communication open. I'm a little disappointed cause we tried to reach out and
tried to have Hillel engaged as it was but it sort of didn't materialise which is okay. It's different
leadership and it's not bad, it's just that Ora is doing the stuff she does and has good ideas and
good intentions but it never sort of materialised. Things will start to come around. I think that's
the one piece that's important. Also finding new ways to do education and to do commemoration
is also -- and I think that's what is part of also -- I used the word dynamic again. I think it's a
dynamic group when you have it in the consciousness. Zelda sees something and says "hey, this
would be a great fit" and meets Rachel Ditor and Rachel's got a real background in this and



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Rachel says this would be great and comes to us and we say "wow this would be great." So when
it's in the consciousness of people opportunity arises, and I think success is opportunity meeting
good fortune. That's kind of very exciting and the archival project, we kind of wanted to do that.
We never had much money and we didn't need much. It was always a struggle and Peter said
"well, why don't I write something to the Waldman foundation." All of a sudden, we get $1500
from there and we put in another, we got something from Federation two years ago that we didn't
get last year because they like to move it around. This year we put something in and we got more
than the first time. But we're using that. So to me that's sort of proof that wow, there's
recognition of what we're doing and we're doing it right and it's supported. Now this archiving
that Davjola is doing, there will be a real -- I kind of gathered it sort of haphazardly on my
computer by event and tried to gather all the stuff, but now it's going to be done properly and the
website will be built up. So there will be a continuing resource for students and academics and
the public to actually see. So it won't be lost and it's in a modern kind of format. I think those are
all really good steps and our group should be really pleased with that. It is everybody, you find
ways to engage people. Joseph Shepherd took care of the audio for five years -- that's way
outside of my skillset and it ran smoothly. Then Nathan took it over. My kind of approach is if
you're going to do something, if people are engaged, then they will be committed to it and they
will own it. If you're going to do it, you say "okay well I'll do everything and you just do this."
Then it's not successful. So I always when organising, I'll say "let's move the facilitator around, it
doesn't have to be the same person all the time." Because everyone can do it and they're all of a
sudden engaged in it. The music, we have continuing links with different musicians in the
community so they're engaged with it. So it's all part of the education process cause when they're
there, when the musicians are there, they're hearing everything else that's going on too. So it's
other ways to reach out when you engage -- the window we did it for two years and it's a
tremendously -- well, when you invite the Chief of Police to do the window he's doing that but
he's also there and he hears and then he comes back. He's come every time too. Del Manak come
every time too and knows the people. Chief Ron Sam came from the Songhees and I'm sure he's
never been to an event like this. We invite Andy Thomas too and once he came and they come
and I know Ron, we do some work for him. I called him and he said yeah he'd come. I asked
"will you participate to do this?" and he did. I sat with him. People are blown away by hearing
this because all they've heard is 6 million, all they've seen is bodies in crematoria. To come and
hear the stories, to hear Jordan give a historical perspective about what this means and the work
you're doing in a modern world. To hear Julius' first-hand story. To hear things that were written
by children. To hear a story that my father wrote while he was experiencing this. You know, in
an environment where you've got their attention and then to hear this beautiful music that takes
your breath away. We've had Orlee -- I don't know if you know Orlee -- Orlee Salamber-Albee I
think her name is. An Israeli woman who's a post-doc and a researcher at the university, has this
voice that just stops you, this incredibly crystal clear voice. And then Neshamah did a beautiful
song last year -- I'd never heard her sing. And now this woman Annabel just appears out of the
ether and has this beautiful haunting voice and has her own stuff. These people just keep kind of
surfacing and if they have a good experience working with us, or participating with us, and they
see how vibrant the commemoration is, then they're engaged and they'll come back and they'll
help with everybody there. I guess it's about creating something that's vibrant, alive, and
meaningful. If you do that everybody who's there will take something away from it and will
come back and will remember it. Young, old, Jewish, non-Jewish. I think that's I guess -- when
you talk about it and when I think out loud, when I think about it I think that's also another piece.



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We never sat down and said "okay, let's create a vibrant event so that all this will happen." We
sort of pooled ideas in an open and I think pretty healthy discussion way because we have some
strong voices in our group and some strong opinions and all valid opinions, but we kind of work
it out to get a programme, and when we do that you get the synthesis of all these ideas and I love
that. That's the way I try to work in my professional voice. It takes a little more time and a little
more patience, but if you can do that the rewards are great. And I think we've been able to do
that. I think the big challenge is now "okay let's find new ways to do this, let's find news ways to
keep it vibrant, let's find new ways to keep it dynamic, let's find new ways to engage people and
get this message across." So I think this play is really good, we've always talked about doing
something between events. We sponsored a movie at the Jewish Film Festival and then had a
panel discussion after. We scrounged together a bit of donation to do that. So we've done like
that, but I think this play is our first major other initiative. And that's great, that will spawn its
own sort of support. In a way I'm really pleased the way it's evolved. It has been I think five
years, it's really grown. Let's not get kind of complacent, let's keep it dynamic and vibrant and
get some more people and some more energy in and then be a happy elder spectator to just kvell.
I'm really -- again, no adjective -- pleased, satisfied, lucky the way it's evolved. It is certainly the
vision of all those who control the project. When we got together at our first sort of potluck to
say "okay what do we want to do and how do we want to do this?" If someone had told us five
years later that this is what would be happening, I think we would have been very happy with
this. I think people are quite pleased and they're still coming back. Even Joseph Shepherd who
kind of withdrew and other priorities came up for him, I checked with him when I got back
involved and no there was nothing wrong, just other things came up. I invited him to potluck and
he would've come, but they've got health kind of issues, and he was happy to re-engage with the
group. You don't have to be working, you put in several years of just making this run. When I
kind of coordinate or organise something, I don't have to be kind of super controlling to do
everything. I'm really happy I find Joseph, I say "okay Joseph, can you do this?" He says "Yeah I
can." I say "okay that's fine, you call me if there's a problem." I don't have to be sitting on his
shoulder and I think that makes my life so much -- there's enough that I worry about. You know,
you've organised events, you worry about everything. There's enough to worry about that I don't
have to worry about all those things. So you get people and then they feel -- people have to feel
an ownership, a commitment, that they're being valued and heard. I think it's both as our cell has
evolved and as the commemorations have evolved, and sort of as the next stage as more of this
outreach is coming along, I'm pretty happy with the way it's coming along. I think it's a big
challenge what happens next. I think the passage of time, the pool of survivors and even children
of survivors, diminishing. Just the nature of my generation -- we're not old but we're moving on
and a new generation, there's a lot more going on for them. There's a lot of competition so just
being able to find ways to reach out and to teach and to learn and to honour, you know. It will be
a challenge but I think it's good. Challenges make people think.

Stanger-Ross: Great. I think you should be proud of what the group's accomplished. Before we
end, is there anything else that you want to make sure you say?

Menczer: No, I think it's great and thank you for taking the interest. I don't know you well but
I'm getting to know you a bit and I really was knocked out by the talk you gave at Kristallnacht.
I'm not an academic but I admire the work you're doing and I think it's great to do and I think it
will be a tremendous resource for students and the public to just learn this and I'm happy to be



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able to contribute to that. I hope that's helpful and I look forward to seeing the final result of the
final report and study.

Stanger-Ross: Great, thank you.

-- END --