Ed Fitch Interview

Transcription completed 13/09/2019

Ed Fitch Interview 16.5.2019 (Part 1) – Defying Hatred Project



Stanger-Ross: I'm going to start just by situating us in case the audio is, you know, floating
around on its own. Here we are in Victoria BC on May --

Fitch: 16th.

Stanger-Ross: 16th 2019 at the house of Ed and Sharon Fitch at 1147 Chapman St. Jordan
Stanger-Ross, the University of Victoria. We're here for an interview as part of the Defying
Hatred project. Thanks Ed.

Fitch: My name is Ed Fitch.

Stanger-Ross: Can we get some biographical -- like date of birth -- details?

Fitch: Born 28 March 1949 in Montreal, Quebec. Came to Victoria in 2006. Plan to be here for a
long time.

Stanger-Ross: I'll just set up again by saying there are three components or themes to the
interview that I'm trying to explore. One is essentially biographical and, in particular, I'm
interested in the background that brings people to an interest in Holocaust education and
commemoration. So it's not quite a full life history approach, but for a lot of folks that ends up
having a life history dimension. A second is I'm trying -- partly through archival but also through
these interviews -- to reconstruct just what has happened locally in terms of Holocaust
memorialization, commemoration, and education. And then third, I'm trying to explore the ideas
underlying those practices. So what it is that we hope to accomplish or that you think can be
accomplished through memorial activities or educational activities and then just exploring that at
some depth. As we discussed a little bit on the phone I am also interested in those divergences or
differences of opinion locally about those topics. So that's one of the things that I'm trying to
explore in these interviews as well. Having said that, we can start wherever makes sense for
interviewing.

[00:02:59]

Fitch: So why do I have an interest in Holocaust studies? It's a starting point. So, I grew up in a
vibrant Jewish community in Montreal. My family were not big Shul-goers but definitely,
defiantly Jewish, proudly Jewish. Jewish education included Cheder, it was two days a week
after school. Of course, I resented getting out of school and having to take the bus downtown to
the synagogue and going to Hebrew school. So it was two afternoons a week and on Sunday
mornings until Bar Mitzvah. That education took place mostly at Shaar Hashomayim Synagogue,
a very high church, conservative synagogue, in Montreal. I think to this day they still have
separate seating, and the president on the bima wears a top hat and, you know, there was a choir.
Big, magnificent building. Some Jewish education was with a tutor at home. I don't remember
exactly which years, but all that basically ended at Bar Mitzvah. I guess it's like a PhD deemed



full and didn't have to learn anything anymore. Well, of course, maturity brings different
attitudes to that. The people I grew up with, um, many of my parents' friends were veterans of
World War Two, Jewish veterans. You may be aware -- I've got Ellin Bessner's book around
here somewhere that just came out about the Jewish Canadian contribution in World War Two.
Many of them were veterans. Many were Holocaust survivors themselves. I remember friends of
my parents with a number tattooed on their arm. So it was something we were always very aware
of. Zionism and Holocaust Remembrance were part of the growing up experience.

[00:05:21]

I'd say in my teen years -- so post-Bar Mitzvah -- that it all went pretty dormant. But the age of
17, just out of high school, I joined the army. And that had a salutary effect. I went off to the
Royal Military College. There were two feeders and one finishing college at that time. So I
specifically started at Collège Militaire Royale in Saint-Jean, Quebec. Student body, probably
around 500 and faculty, I don't know, maybe that was eighty or so. I found I was the only Jew.
So from growing up in a neighbourhood in Montreal where being Jewish was something quite
taken for granted -- do you know Montreal?

Stanger-Ross: Yeah.

Fitch: Some of the neighborhoods, we were in NDG-- that's Notre-Dame-de-Grâce. Hampstead
was beside us, still an area with a very heavily Jewish population. Well, Hampstead was
forbidden for Jews up until probably the 1950s. Today it's probably 98% Jewish. It's really quite
a remarkable flip flop. My high school -- part of just a standard high school, the Protestant
school board of Greater Montreal -- pretty well had to close on Jewish holidays cause that's how
many Jews were amongst the students and the faculty. So I left that environment and went into
one where all of a sudden I'm the only Jew. And a little insight came to me -- how does this
come to a 17-year-old? Lord knows what's going on in a 17-year-old's mind. I figured out that if
I didn't respect my own religion how could I expect anyone else to? So that set me up for, first of
all, making sure people knew I was Jewish and then really launching my own life journey of
learning about being Jewish and so on. So of course Holocaust and Zionism are parts of that as
well. As I matured -- and that was a process that took a long time -- learned -- and we've been
increasing our Jewish practice. We had some very good advice as a young couple, newly
married, we were living in Quebec City. I was working at the army base in Valcartier. A young
rabbi came from Montreal to speak to the young couples in Quebec City. There were three
couples. We were all about the same age, had all been married just for very few years. I
remember an evening with him. I regret that I don't remember this Rabbi's name because he's had
a very long-term impact on me. You know, we had an evening together and what I remember
him saying, you know, that people will try and tell you that being a little bit kosher is like being a
little bit pregnant. I mean, you are, you are. He said he finds that to be a very discouraging, very
high bar to achieve and, and very difficult to access. He said, "don't worry about that." He said,
"just increase your practice and your observance as you can, as you learn, as you adopt customs."
He said, "just never go back. Always go forward. So whatever you have, keep that. And then
always go forward." That became a theme in our marriage and our home. Sometimes we've been
very slow about it but we never went back, always went forward. When you're going forward
there's lots of space, there's infinite room to grow. So Holocaust -- interest in Holocaust



education -- is, you know, I'm of an age that the Holocaust created a protective umbrella over my
generation that my children will not enjoy. So in my time of growing up, and the Holocaust was
so close and so fresh, there were so many eyewitnesses, that it was, to any kind of intellectual or
educated person, it was totally unacceptable to be a denier or objecting in any way. It was just a
given, it was a fact. I'm sure there were deniers, but not amongst the people I knew. So as I got
older, as one hopes to do, and the Holocaust survivors are falling away as this is the natural way,
I became more and more aware of the lessons and it was now going to fall to my generation to
sustain them. We say never again. Of course, there have been genocides since then and the
Western world has not done particularly well. You think of -- genocide is a technical term, I may
be misusing it -- but Cambodia, Rwanda come to mind. Even the Balkans to some degree, where
I spent a year during the civil war, trying to keep the belligerents from each other's throats. And
we were by and large successful in doing that. My understanding of the burden of responsibility
became more clear. Indeed, we're now on the cusp of seeing the last of the -- I mean, I suppose
there are a few Holocaust survivors -- they couldn't be my age, they'd have to be at least five or
six years older. But even talking to them now -- there's a chap down the street. As a young child
his memories of the 39 to 45 period were limited or nonexistent. There's an infant. So the
survivors who were of an age that they can speak cogently about the facts on the ground, there
are precious few right now. And this is a very important period of transition so I'm more alert to
it. I've done some volunteer work in Holocaust education but not very much. Having, you know,
that sort of buildup maybe I should be doing a lot more, but I've chosen to volunteer in other
areas. But whenever there is a Holocaust education or memorialisation being presented I make a
point of being there and support them that way. What was the question again?

Stanger-Ross: Maybe I'll just follow on from where we are. I have a few questions -- I might go
back to stuff -- but I'm intrigued also by this notion of a time of transition. What are your
thoughts on that and what do you think its implications are?

Fitch: Well, in latter years -- I don't know if you can show this graphically, what objective data
there is you can measure -- but anecdotally in my lifetime from growing up when the
Holocaust was so big and so present that nobody in their right mind or somebody who was
considered a person to listen to in society -- I'm not saying there may have been fringe types. But
anybody who was anybody including intellectuals, the thinkers amongst us, nobody would deny
it. It was lamented, we sought to define lessons, to memorialise and educate and so on. Well, that
is receding and we're seeing more and more voices in the public square that feel they can with
impunity call into doubt the very existence of the Holocaust or the extent of the Holocaust or
who to blame, you know, blame the victims. Blah blah blah. So this is happening increasingly. I
don't know where it's going to go. But I feel that we're catching this torch being passed from that
generation that survived and it's now our successors. I mean there are children of survivors,
multi-generational and problems associated with traumatic experiences are passed on from
generation to generation. They have wonderful societies to get together and talk about that and I
hope it's helpful to them. But that's not my role. I wasn't touched by it that closely and I
understand as a world cataclysmic event on a scale possibly never before seen and should never
be emulated -- I'm repeating myself now and we have to pick up.

Stanger-Ross: Do you think there are other challenges than denial generated by that
generational transition? Or is it primarily denial that strikes you as --



[00:16:30]

Fitch: Denial and distortion. I don't know if you know a difference between them. I supposed
denial is pretty absolute, it didn't happen. That's pretty fringe. The documentary and recorded
evidence is so pervasive. But there are certainly people who would downplay the extent, it wasn't
such a big deal. "Oh, a few Jews got killed? Everyone's getting killed." 60 million casualties or
something for World War Two, or was that just the Russian experience? The numbers boggle the
mind so what's 6 million in amongst that and was it really 6 million? So that kind of talk is out
there and it finds willing ears. Social media is apparently quite effective in spreading that kind of
crap. Note for the recording: Jordan just felt the house move a little bit. Two doors down they're
demolishing a house. We're getting the odd shockwave but we're used to it now.

Stanger-Ross: *laughs* Maybe going back, I'm curious in your childhood, post-war Montreal.
You talked about Zionism and the Holocaust. In what context would those show up to you? Do
you remember events?

Fitch: So the survivors found refuge in many countries throughout Europe and indeed even in
Germany and Poland. Many came to Canada, US of course. But I don't know what percentage --
maybe you know the number -- went to Israel. We've heard stories of yeshiva bochers, young
men who should've been studying -- school age, high school age -- landing as refugees on the
shores of Israel and within hours or days if not hours, were part of the Haganah and being sent to
battle. So there's a connection in that way, so the survivors going to Israel, helping to build
Israel. Israel is the image of the place that if Israel had existed then the Holocaust wouldn't have
occurred. The remarkable contributions that survivors have made, I mentioned, in building Israel.
To me Holocaust survivors and Zionism are inextricably linked.

Stanger-Ross: I guess I'm also curious how, as a child, was this something -- say in Cheder that
you mentioned -- or some other context. Do you remember learning there was this incident or
there were these actions? Do you remember how it is that came to your consciousness as a kid?

Fitch: Mhm. There were kids in my class that were children of survivors, I had teachers that
were survivors. In fact our teachers were either survivors or expat Israelis. So that again tended
to mingle them. Yeah -- specific education...The Holocaust memorialisation events, in Cheder, in
synagogue. Those were regular, they were part of our calendar, to answer the question.

Stanger-Ross: Okay. What have been your involvements as an adult?

[00:20:50]

Fitch: I volunteered -- attended events for sure. And volunteered, I mean, in fringe ways. When
there are gathers at Emanu-El they like to have some small attention paid to security. When
you're memorialising the Holocaust you're memorialising the death of so many Jews, makes
living Jews a little nervous. Not to say paranoid. So often I contribute by providing a security
ring around. You know, I guess you've got to go with what you know how to do. I'm not an
artistic person, I'm not a person talented in creating events that move people. But I can provide
some support around the edges that seems to be useful.



Stanger-Ross: Did you have any organisation roles prior to living in Victoria? When in your life
did you first start --

Fitch: Victoria is our 14th home since we were married. I don't count those before we were
married. So all that to say, we lived in many different places across Canada and we were three
years in Germany. So in some places there was more or less contact with Jewish community. So
where there was contact with Jewish community, I became somewhat in demand in later years as
a Major General and became more visible to the Jewish community and would be asked to take a
leadership role in commemorative ceremonies. Particularly when I was living in Ottawa or
Toronto where I would travel to those places to participate. You know, I would be a torch lighter
or something like that, or giving a little talk. Now I no longer have any official role or semi-
official role so I'm doing it on my own, but that will continue. It's part of my -- I'd say inculcated
in my DNA.

Stanger-Ross: Are there some events over the years that stand out to you?

Fitch: It would take me some research because my papers are not yet well organised. That's a
project for when I get old. But some very significant ceremonies in Ottawa on probably around
anniversaries. I remember things on Parliament Hill, the JCC in Ottawa, some different
synagogues in Toronto, Earl Bales Park there's a big Holocaust memorial and I've been there a
number of times. And then of course here. So we've been here now -- this will be thirteen years
this summer. So virtually every year being at the cemetery for the ceremony there, at Emanu-El.

Stanger-Ross: For Yom HaShoah?

Fitch: Yom HaShoah and Yom HaZikaron, often at the JCC or other locations.

Stanger-Ross: Are you usually at the Kristallnacht as well?

Fitch: I am, I am. It's funny -- it's informed our travels as well. When I was serving, most of the
time I was serving in the army I wouldn't be allowed to go to -- it was the Iron Curtain most of
the time. But in latter years of course travel is easier and particularly since the unification of
Germany, so a few years ago -- six or seven years ago -- I went for the first time to Berlin and
been back since. Davened in a synagogue in Berlin which felt quite at home because they use the
same Shabbat Siddur that we had at Emanu-El that time. Very easy transition. And, you know,
wherever you are in Berlin you're confronting the Holocaust or it's confronting you. The
synagogue we went to survived Kristallnacht because a crowd, a mob, had formed to destroy it
and there was a Berlin city policeman, German, who confronted them and said "my job is to
protect this building" and they said "get out of the way, we're going to burn it." And the story
goes that he drew his pistol and said "who's first?" and the crowd got the message and dispersed.
So that synagogue was not damaged on Kristallnacht. I always wondered what happened to him
but he actually lived to a ripe old age and died of natural causes many years later having had
normal progression in his career. Quite remarkable. And there's a plaque on the side of this
building telling the story of this German policeman. But the building ironically was destroyed,
by Allied bombing, not by anything the Nazis did. Oh, except to start the war, I suppose that
downstream effect. Yeah. The sanctuary's gone. They have saved and restored the facade and



tower, it's really a lovely piece of architecture. It's one of these things with a grand entrance and
a big portico and a big dome over it. Up above the dome there's a chapel that is in use quite
regularly. That's where I prayed. But of course, museums and so on -- one perhaps one of the
great Holocaust museums of the world. We were there accompanied by German friends --
Bavarians or more specifically Franconians, they're quite fussy about that -- and a friend, he was
my opposite number in our partner battalion in the Germany army by serving there with the
Canadian army and we've been friends ever since. So that's from the mid-70s and we've done a
number of travels with them and they've come here a couple of times as well. We went into the
Holocaust museum in Berlin and couldn't get him out. That one -- it's special amongst
Holocaust museums -- have you been to that one?

Stanger-Ross: Are you talking about the Jewish Museum or --

Fitch: No.

Stanger-Ross: No, I haven't been to the Holocaust museum.

Fitch: The Jewish museum is not far away and it's a wonderful piece of modern architecture,
very cleverly done, a fine museum. This is not far away. It's a piece of land where any buildings
that were there were absolutely destroyed during the war. It has this wonderful exterior of these
large concrete blocks in rows and columns, which I was quite skeptical of being a civil engineer.
I mean, concrete's great for making functional things and this didn't look very functional to me.
But as you walk into it, the effect is marked and -- yeah -- it's a good piece of sculpture. I mean a
piece of sculpture the size of a football field kind of thing. And the museum's underneath. But
what's different about this museum I thought was their stress on individual's stories. The big
numbers and everything are there, but they really focused in on families and what happened to
the individual members of the families and that just seized my friend. He was also -- he was born
within a month or two of when I was, so we're 1949. So he grew up in West Germany that was
coming out of that horrible period and undoubtedly, you know, learned about the Holocaust. I'm
not sure in detail what he was taught, but they know it as a cataclysmic event in the history of
their country. Of course, he had relatives who served or killed or were taken prisoner and on and
on. I think he had an uncle that it was only ten years later that he was released by the Russians.
Being a good friend and empathetic towards us, he really -- and a very good amateur historian --
was very taken by this. It was a significant emotional experience for him. I forgot the question
again, Jordan, sorry. *laughs*

Stanger-Ross: I've been to the memorial, not the museum underneath. So, one of the things that
visitors to that memorial often notice is the casual traffic through it. What did you think of that?

Fitch: You know, I don't worry about it. People live in Berlin, they have to go across it. They
gotta live. Maybe on a day off, afternoon or something, they wander in and they realise where
they are and what it is and it may or may not touch them. It's not going to work for everybody, I
get that. And maybe familiarity breeds contempt. But I'm sure many thousands of people go
there every year that are affected and are touched.



Stanger-Ross: I was asking you I guess about memorable events and you listed a few. I wonder
if there are any that stand out in some detail for you.

[00:32:08]

Fitch: You know they were all significant. I was emotionally invested in each one of them.
Some were better organised than others, so be it. I say, in my papers, I have the programs, I have
pictures that were taken or something like that, or speeches that I gave are there. There isn't one
that I -- I haven't prepared to recall a particular date or event. So, I'm not being very helpful
there.

Stanger-Ross: Has there been a shift over time in terms of events that -- I don't know if this was
a case at these events -- but events that tended to focus more on witness testimony or ones that, I
don't know -- has that been a change over time?

Fitch: No, that definitely. And you know, early on when I could be aware as a child -- I don't
know, 10 years old, teenager, whatever -- early on survivors were taken for granted cause there
were so many of them. You didn't hear their stories a lot because you'd heard them, I'd heard
them, we'd had enough of that. Another war story. Holocaust fatigue perhaps. Probably did them
a disservice. Or, on the other hand, it helped them get back to more normal kind of life as much
as one could. But clearly -- it's probably measurable -- in latter years, I'd say the last 20, certainly
the last 20 to 25 years, more and more people are becoming aware of this legacy, that first-hand
legacy, that we're losing touch with the flesh and blood version of it. So progressively more and
more, the survivors are figuring in these ceremonies and I've heard some very powerful accounts
as I'm sure you have. Notably Peter Gary here in Victoria and region. I think they're being given
more respect even as their ability to tell the story has diminished. It's kind of ironic.

Stanger-Ross: It's interesting to me, I guess -- I don't have any specific thing in mind that
generates this surprise for me. But I guess I'm surprised you don't seem to be describing, say,
early-60s Montreal, a period of silence around this? Cause that's an image that I kind of -- silence
and silence broken and so on.

Fitch: Silence is too absolute. I'm sure there were Holocaust education societies at that time that
were doing good work. I don't know if they got the same attendance that they'd get now. Mind
you, there were more survivors who might be drawn to those things. As the survivors diminish --
we see it even on November 11th for Canada's Remembrance day. Immediately after the war, 39
to 45, Canada had generated 1.1 million veterans so there were lots of people to attend
November 11th. But as they started dying off, we're seeing the second, third, fourth generations
coming out in greater numbers. Maybe the low point -- let's say for this to pick a number, let's
say around 2000 had been a low point. And then I've seen it increasing ever since then, for
Remembrance day. I think there's a similar effect for Holocaust remembrance. So I don't want to
say there was silence in Montreal at all. But maybe less appreciation of the import of those
events and taking survivors more for granted. By the larger population, I don't want to take
anything away from the Holocaust education groups or memorialisation groups.

Stanger-Ross: What do you think will happen as we don't have survivors to tell the story?





International Holocaust Remembrance Day. I went to a church near Elk Lake and people had
these signs, "#weremember". Are you familiar with that?

Stanger-Ross: No.

Fitch: It's big. Jordan, you gotta get on it. *laughs* It's not specific to Victoria of course and it's
not specific to Jews. It's international. Yeah, they took video and posted it on the appropriate
Facebook sites and so on.

Stanger-Ross: Do you attend the events at the Legislature?

Fitch: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Stanger-Ross: How long have those been going on?

Fitch: As long as I've been aware, so I don't know how long before that. Nico Slobinksy is the
CIJA rep resident in the JCC in Vancouver. I can certainly give you his coordinates, he would
have all the facts about that. So they're the agency or they're the point of contact on the Jewish
community that the Legislature works with and they manage that each year.

Stanger-Ross: Can you describe the different events? So, every year has three or four -- can you
describe?

[00:44:11]

Fitch: Okay, so I think of it as starting in the fall with the Kristallnacht. I think that is always --
certainly in the years I'm aware of -- I think it's always been at Emanu-El. And sometimes, you
know, the format got a bit old and tired and somebody would come along and give it a kick in
the ass and come up with something very clever. Of course, you would know or someone
listening to this would know that Kristallnacht refers to kristal, glass, so it's often referred to as
"the night of broken glass." So one year it was the Hillel leader came up with this concept and
she had a window frame -- four feet high, three feet wide kind of thing -- and made, simulated
large chunks of broken glass, you know, nice jagged edges, that survivors would come up to the
front and say something about their experience and then place a piece into the frame so it was
like a big jigsaw puzzle. In the end you had the window was intact again, you could see the
jagged lines where it was broken. That was quite evocative, I think she used that for two years.
And there have been other -- you know, lighting the candle of course. That event has been very
good at getting political and religious leaders from around Victoria, and police representatives.
We've got a wonderful Chief of Police here, Del Manak. He's invariably there. He's only been in
office a few years but he's been very responsive, very sensitive as I'm sure he is with the other
communities that make up Victoria. So those have been -- I don't know if one can use the word
enjoyable -- no, maybe more emotionally connecting some years than other years, but that's been
a good steady thing. So that's November. Then in January of course, the International
Holocaust Remembrance. I'm not sure they've been as continuous, as perennial, and I mentioned
some of them I've been to have been organised by Christians, which is great. So that's January.
Probably next is Yom HaShoah which is typically April, May, depending on the Hebrew



calendar, where it goes. The Holocaust education is usually centred around the January event but
I have the impression it goes for some months. If you only have one survivor speaker and you've
got fifteen schools to service you can't do them all at once. So during the public school academic
year there are a number of them, well I've gone to some -- the ones I can remember the most are
at the Oak Bay High School. A great theatre there. Did I miss any?

Stanger-Ross: Yom HaShoah.

Fitch: Yep. Well, of course, yes. Then the Sunday at the cemetery which is a bit problematic.
This year it fell on a new year -- sorry, a new month. Rosh Chodesh, which is not a time when
one should be visiting cemeteries. But I suppose it has to be on a Sunday to get the people,
whatever the calculus is, other people organising it I give them all credit.

Stanger-Ross: How do those events differ from one another?

Fitch: I'll go through the list again. So Kristallnacht is quite specific, focused on that date and
many people would refer to it as the beginning of the Shoah. First days, I mean you can argue
that. So that's quite clear focus. And a lot of "never again" stuff and they went by including the
civic, political, and other faith leaders there and the "never again" stuff comes out. January, the
UN, the International event is less Jewish I would say. It's more multi-faith, all-faith. And of
course, if I remember correctly, that was the Auschwitz liberation. There were still Jews being
killed in concentration camps after that. Bergen-Belsen, where Peter Gary was, wasn't liberated
until April '45. Yom HaShoah of course is -- and what they do at the Legislature is absolutely
magnificent. The current Premier of the province, I mean, he's amazing. And there's a minister in
his government who's Jewish and she's always there. The Minister of Housing, lovely lady.

Stanger-Ross: Judy Darcy.

Fitch: No that's another one. She's not the Housing one. So Judy has only recently found out she
has Jewish connection. She may actually be Jewish, she wasn't raised Jewish. That story only
came out last year, she repeated it. In fact it was taken from the legislature, though she was there.
It was brought to the cemetery for the commemoration there a few days later. What strikes me at
the Legislature -- it's very solemn, it's very well done. The highest officials -- I mentioned the
Premier, some Ministers of government, and even when the Premier was opposition I think he
used to attend. And it's not often that you hear politicians stand up on their hind legs and speak
the truth. You'd almost believe it. We've become cynical about politicians. But they do that very
well, very well indeed.

Stanger-Ross: I've never been able to attend, so what do you mean by they stand up and speak
the truth?

[00:51:58]

Fitch: You know, rejecting deniers, rejecting Antisemitism in clear public statement. Alright,
they're with a bunch of Jews. But there's usually television cameras there, it's not by any means
kept secret. And how, you know -- now it's a provincial government -- they have some



responsibility for law and order, it's shared, it's split between provincial and federal of course --
and municipal -- but they make it very clear. They understand their role and they're here to
protect people and they're not going to allow Antisemitism to occur on their watch. It's very
heartening. So Jews may sometimes -- some Jews sometimes -- feel embattled or isolated.
Maybe a bit oppressed by their history. And this is the powers of the day standing up and saying
"we share this with you, we understand, we're not going to let this happen again." That's
important, and it's done in a very classy, very definitive manner. And there's food after.

Stanger-Ross: And the Kristallnacht event, which I've only attended once actually, but at least
the one I was at was very connected to other communities, gestures to other events, Indigenous
people in BC. So what do you think of those forms --

Fitch: See that's a matter of some controversy, but, you know, there's nothing monolithic about
Jews. Not even belief in God. There probably isn't a fundamental, it's just something people feel,
you well know that. There is a view that the Holocaust can't be compared to anything. There are
things about it that make it unique and, heaven help us, they should always remain unique. That a
modern, prosperous, civilised country could perpetrate such a thing. The extent of it, the intent of
it, the cold-blooded mechanisms of the involvement -- or at least, if not active involvement, the
requirement of much of their population to at least turn a blind eye to it. The success it achieved,
you know. And the numbers, they're just mindboggling. So yeah sure -- I mean I say "yeah sure"
in a dismissive way -- humans have perpetrated all kinds of atrocities. The way First Nations
were treated even to this day, it hasn't been corrected. Truth and Reconciliation may be just
beginning. And even this current Federal government which came to power leading us to believe
that it would all be solved in the next four years has made baby steps in my humble opinion. Not
that I'm that humble. But a long way to go. So was that an atrocity? Yeah, I guess I'd have to
look up a Concise Oxford English Dictionary definition of atrocity but probably. Was it
genocidal? Seems to have been. Again, technical terms I'm treading around. Was it comparable
to the Holocaust? I would have to say no. I would have to say no. So there's a fear of diluting or
diminishing the Holocaust by comparing it to other things. And yeah we want to bring everybody
in under the umbrella and say "yeah we feel for you too." But the Holocaust is the Holocaust. By
the way, this term Holocaust really going out of fashion amongst Jews because it's -- I guess it's
derived from the Greek -- and has connotations of burnt offerings. So the word Shoah -- and I'm
not more educated on the roots of that word but it seems to be more acceptable amongst Jews.

Stanger-Ross: What do you think is at stake in preserving a view of the unique aspects?

[00:57:18]

Fitch: Well, as time goes on and those first-hand eyewitnesses disappear from the earth. And,
you know, there have been benefits from the Holocaust. I mentioned the protective umbrella I
lived under, that I grew up under. No one would dare deny the Holocaust, they'd be thrown out
of the room, they wouldn't be admitted to civil society. That's diminishing and the creeps are
coming out from under the rocks and they've gained tremendous access to public opinion
through social media. I mean, I think to this day you can't get a letter to the editor published
unless you put your name on it. And yet we allow anonymous venom to spew by electronic
means. I don't understand why that's allowed and indeed there's signs -- albeit of course slowly --



that the nations of the world are getting around to getting a grip on this, that we're not going to
allow that to happen. But in the meantime it is, it's emerging as the Holocaust is moving further
and further back into history. So that accentuates the challenge we have to keep those lessons
learned and memories of the actual events. I mentioned I spent a year in Yugoslavia during the
civil war there. I mean, what the groups there did to each other was absolutely medieval in some
cases. It would melt your tape recorder to tell you some of the things. But it's not the Holocaust. I
think, let the Holocaust, the Shaoh, be the biggest, most horrible thing that humans have done to
other humans. Let that be the worst. That's the standard, don't diminish it. Yes, other people have
suffered, I got it. Ukrainians, you know, forced starvation. First Nations, god help them -- the
term decimated is not well understood. Decimated means you take away ten percent. But when
Europeans arrived in North America they took away ninety percent of the population through
disease and war and other things. Maybe, you know, there's a good example with the Rwanda
massacres. Survivors, Shoah survivors were very active in reaching out to Rwandans in Rwanda
and expatriot communities and sharing with them and helping them learn how to memorialise,
how to remember, how to record. How to treat survivors. So these are important lessons from, let
us hope, the biggest and most horrible of them all, that can help survivors of lesser things. So
definitely we need to share, we need to transmit the lessons. So you have to preserve them but
preserving them just for the sake of preservation...they need to be shared.

Stanger-Ross: Yeah. Because there is controversy around this topic and I think some of the local
controversy around the topic, I think at least, is related to this particular division.

Fitch: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Stanger-Ross: In my view. So I'm going to try to push a little further on this.

Fitch: Okay. I appreciate that. Could we just have a short pause?

Stanger-Ross: Yeah.

Fitch: Yeah.

Stanger-Ross: Should we pause the --

Fitch: As you wish.

Stanger-Ross: Pause the --

-- END OF PART ONE --











Ed Fitch Interview 16.5.2019 (Part 2) – Defying Hatred


Stanger-Ross: So we're resuming here with Ed Fitch and Jordan Stanger-Ross on May 16th we
said, and second part of the interview we've just been recording. For Defying Hatred. I guess we
were talking about uniqueness and connection in between the Shoah and --

Fitch: Pre-eminence. In my view, the pre-eminence of the Shoah compared to others and this
trend now to try and include more and more others. Yeah.

Stanger-Ross: There might be a variety of reasons or, put otherwise, a variety of consequences
that might flow from one or the other emphasis. So, I'm curious for you to explain what are the
reasons or purposes for preserving an understanding of the uniqueness of the Holocaust or
consequences that might flow from failing to appreciate that.

Fitch: Let me preface my comments with a few words about where I am on what we generally
refer to as the political spectrum. So I'm one of those people that I've been accused of being left-
wing, I've been accused of being right-wing and I want to say I'm neither. So I think I'm a
rationalist. Because of the career I followed I was forbidden to take part in politics so my view is
a pox on all their houses. I've worked closely with politicians. A number of hostings of ministers
of government and, you know, individually they've all been very good people. But something
happens when you're put in a caucus and it becomes problematic. So my lens is rationalism.
When they do something, when they initiate a policy or make a decision, I analyse it through "is
this logical? Does it make sense? Is it helpful? Is it good or bad?" So sometimes that -- the views
that I derive from that analysis, some people say "oh you're left-wing" or "oh you're right-wing."
Well, I'm neither. And I recognise that Antisemitism -- I have Deborah Lipstadt's book that she
just recently published on -- I think it's going to be a definitive book -- on Antisemitism. Have
you seen it?

Stanger-Ross: No.

Fitch: She recognises Anti-Semites on the extreme right and the extreme left, right. So I'm wary
of those, I don't think anybody would identify me with either extreme. But I do see in the lefty
side of the spectrum, and it varies according to intensity -- lefty people seem to be more
concerned about being liked and fitting in and being part of it all. "All of society is good and we
should include everybody." And I think that tempts some, and sometimes they give into that
temptation, to diminish the Holocaust, the Shoah, to fit in with others. I can't quantify that, that's
hard to do. But certainly that willingness is there. We're very aware of First Nations of course.
This being British Columbia and the provincial capital. And certainly, God knows Christians
have suffered and Jews have often suffered at the hands of Christians. It's pretty rare that
Christians have suffered at the hands of Jews but, you know, that's the way history went. But I
identify it as a bit of a left, liberal, small-L liberal, progressive trend to sell the Holocaust, sell
the Shoah off to buy, to buy in -- that's redundant. You require a buy-in from other groups that
feel aggrieved. And I think that can be taken too far.



Stanger-Ross: And to what consequence? What is the --

Fitch: Yeah, so if you diminish the Shoah -- so will there be a greater one? Do we need a greater
one to be the worst ever? Heaven help us. Or does it let other -- you know, I'm looking for words
-- I might say a lesser horrible event. But I mean, to the people involved in it there's no lesser. I
mean, if you watched your parents be shot, whether it was an isolated event or something that
happened over many years to many people, at that microscopic level they're identical, aren't
they? But the Shoah has a place in the history of humankind, the horrific peak of all these events.
So it's not to say the others are lesser. But you don't want to start a competition to get worse than
the Shoah, you know what I mean?

Stanger-Ross: I guess what I'm trying to get at -- and I'm coming at it from I think a pretty pure
curiosity in a sense so I don't mean to be pushing against the view.

Fitch: Yeah.

Stanger-Ross: If we imagine one scenario where all of those memorial activities that we just
discussed in Victoria no longer exist around specifically Jewish memorial events or the Shoah
specifically or any of that. And instead we have regular events that jointly bring together a
variety of harms that humans have committed on mass levels against one another. And then we
imagine another scenario, let's say at the other extreme -- well, I'm not that interested in the other
extreme I guess so let's leave out the other extreme. You know, something where the
Holocaust can never be compared or something. But actually that maybe is just a distraction. If
we imagine a scenario where memorial activities are overwhelmingly connective --

Fitch: None stands out.

Stanger-Ross: None stands out and not a competitive type thing, but okay there's atrocities in
Rwanda and settler-colonialism and the Shoah and all of that -- what we should do is four times a
year in Victoria the Premier stands up and talks, and so on. So what is the risk in that? Or what is
the reason not to?

Fitch: So I'm not sure if it's relevant just at this point of the discussion, but the lefty, progressive,
small-L liberal element along with diminishing the uniqueness of the Shoah would be quite
happy to diminish the uniqueness of Jews altogether. Maybe they're linked. I have trouble with
that. So maybe that's the more conservative side of me. Not religiously conservative but
politically conservative I guess. I think there's a lot of evidence that Jews are quite unique in the
world, as the Shoah is unique, and that the Shoah had to be visited upon the Jews: just a
coincidence? I think not. I think not. And if anybody listens to this, let it be clear that I'm a
believer. I believe that everything we see and know and do in the past and into the future comes
from the one true God, the source of all and the source of all good. And everything that comes
from God is good. So even the Shoah -- I mean these are intellectual dilemmas that we can't
resolve, we live with them, that the Shoah was a lot of people making bad choices, perpetrating
the Shoah on a relatively defenseless group. But those people were also created by the same God
that I'm talking about. I don't believe in a determinist world, I believe that we do have free
choice, but within limitations. It's not completely out of it all, free choice would be...So I think



Jews have a unique place in the world and the world needs Jews and that uniqueness. So efforts
to diminish that uniqueness by saying "oh well we're really all the same. Well we go to different
churches but it doesn't matter cause we're really all the same." No, I don't agree. Where
everybody is equal in terms of their rights and is equally entitled to all the good things in life,
there are differences and I think removing those differences -- I search for analogies, like what if
we only had one kind of tree in the world? Wouldn't the world be diminished? We have
thousands of kinds of trees I presume, I'm not a botanist. I can generally distinguish between a
tree and a flower, that's about as far as I know. But maybe there's one kind of tree that there's
only a few of compared to all the others. And it's important and we should ponder why there are
only a few and what the role of that tree is and how that tree has affected the history of the world
and humankind. So I'm not about diminishing differences, I think they're there for a reason. So if
we're diminishing differences between Jews and others -- and I'd already get slammed for saying
others because "oh no they're not others, we're all us!" *sighs* I square that circle. Then it would
follow that you would diminish the Shoah compared to the sufferings that other groups of people
have gone through. I don't think that's helpful. I don't think that's why we were given these
events.

Stanger-Ross: Yeah. I'm glad you answered in that way, because it's not a way that my thinking
would have carried me. So I want to think about that further. We've spoke a couple of times
directly to our listeners so I'm going to ask a couple of leading questions which is probably not
good practice. Am I hearing partly in what you've said on the whole -- is there a risk to Jews
forgetting the uniqueness -- for allowing political leadership and allowing society to forget the
particular form that that attack on Jews took -- is part of what you're guarding against a material
risk to the lives of future Jews?

[00:13:38]

Fitch: I would say yes. So, we need to keep this focused on the Shoah. But there's an inevitable
link between the Shoah and Judaism. And diminishing one diminishes the other. And my thesis
is that diminishing either is wrong. Not wrong to glorify the Jews or glorify their suffering, but
that this is the way that the world has been set up, against all odds, why should the Jews have
survived this long in these small numbers. You've seen the t-shirt, you know, first the
Babylonians, then the Syrians, then the Greeks, then the Romans, then the Germans. They've all
come and gone and we're still here, you know. Coincidence? Accident of history? Greater minds
than mine and even yours, Jordan, are struggling with that question. I'm a civil engineer and
simple soldier, I'll leave that to the real intellectuals. But I understand at a gut level that this
uniqueness cannot be an accident and therefore there must be a purpose. Therefore we need to
contribute to the preservation. If I'm right, if the uniqueness does come from a higher source, it's
going to survive despite my efforts to either save it or diminish it. But somehow I feel as part of
it that I have a role in maintaining it. The effects of that approach of saying "no we're all the
same and our suffering is all the same" is evident. It's here and you look at the last Pew survey in
the United States and we understand that Canada is similar but maybe twenty years behind in
rates of assimilation and intermarriage. So adopting orthodox Judaism is not a guarantee that
Judaism will survive, at least in your family, but it's the next best thing to maintain. Whereas
abandoning orthodoxy, moving through conservative Judaism, through reform and whatever
else, there's lots of evidence now that that is a slippery slope down to zero identity. Which







Fitch: Well there's no doubt that there were creative differences. In terms of the vision of what
the event should be. Vastly different. And maybe that's inevitable and a good thing, you know, as
the next generation comes along. There isn't really a generational gap there -- the next, I don't
know, another group of people comes along that are taking another fresher look at it and that's all
great. In terms of creativity, in putting on an attractive event, I think there has been improvement
with the new people involved. Maybe they're not so new anymore. I don't really -- I know the
people in the Shoah Project to say hello to them, but I don't socialise with them. I identify them
somewhere on that lefty progressive spectrum. Some of them I've seen have in mind -- certainly
there are other issues in the Jewish community -- you may not be aware that there are contests of
ideas going on with, I feel, potential for very grave consequences. I'm taking a more right of
centre approach, a more conservative approach. But the people I know of in the Shoah Project
who are also taking the lefty approach -- that was air quotes -- lefty approach on this other issue,
in my view, are going down that road of diminishing Judaism and diminishing the Shoah by
saying, you know, "everybody's suffering." I don't know how you measure one person's suffering
against another. A horrible thought. Yeah, so it's some of the same people and is there an
agenda? I haven't seen a mission statement except something nice and bland like "make sure
people don't forget the Shoah" or Kristallnacht or whatever. Which is fine, but is there a sotto-
voce agenda that we're not hearing about? Or do I find myself in a community where the centre
of mass is moving off in that direction and I'm resisting it, to my grief? Don't know. That'll take
me years to find out I think.

Stanger-Ross: So I'll just say to the student who listens to this in fifteen years or something --
because we're at risk of a discussion where we both know what's being talked about but our
listener doesn't -- that we're talking about interfaith burial or mixed burial.

Fitch: The words I would use is burying non-Jews in the one holy Jewish cemetery on
Vancouver Island.

Stanger-Ross: I don't think we need to get into this for that, but some day maybe they can
dredge up archival documents and then they can do the work to link --

Fitch: And the nexus to help that student is what I referred to as this diminishment of Judaism
thing, that everybody's the same, why have separate cemeteries if we're all the same and equal?
I'm not debating equality but we're not all the same. Equal doesn't mean identical, I guess that's
my bottom line.

Stanger-Ross: This has been great and I think really helpful to me and the work I'm doing. Is
there anything else you want to make we...

Fitch: Thank you. Standard closing question, you're right. Um -- I think I've covered it. I could
summarize if you'd like. You helped me by your questions enunciated in a relatively concise
manner. I look at a world and I look at history from time immemorial some people like to say,
and in there I see Jews and Judaism as a unique factor, important components of which are Israel
and the Holocaust, the Shoah. 0.2% of the world's population has brought us 22% of Nobel
Prizes, you know, anomalous things like that. We are at our peril to either forget or diminish the
Shoah or Judaism for that matter.



Stanger-Ross: Okay. Thank you Ed.