He was in the home of a nearby family being raised as a Catholic — hidden in plain sight for his own protection. None of Gottdenker’s roughly 70 extended family members were immediately sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, the notorious concentration camp hours away from their home village of Mielec. Gottdenker, who has called Toronto home since 1958, said he visits the most infamous of the Nazi concentration camps at every opportunity to honour his family. But his next trip to Auschwitz on Monday, part of a commemorative event to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the camp’s liberation, will be more about the future than the past. While Gottdenker spent his earliest years not far from the Nazi camps, he was deliberately kept oblivious of the shadow they had already cast on his life.

Source: thestar January 26, 2020 15:11 UTC