'Some structural damage' from wildfire near Fort Nelson, B.C., mayor confirms
More than one home has been damaged or lost due to a massive wildfire outside of the B.C. community of Fort Nelson, the mayor confirmed Wednesday.
Hedy Bohm was only 15 years old when her family was stolen from her.
In 1944, the young Hungarian girl and her family were stripped of their possessions and relocated to a Jewish ghetto. And in June of that year, they were forcefully put on an overcrowded train car to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps in Poland.
They were separated there and Bohm never saw her family again.
“As long as I was with my parents I felt safe. But on arrival, when we had to get off, within moments, my father was gone. My mother was gone,” Bohm told CTVNews.ca in a video interview on the Monday before International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“I was alone in that unbelievably strange and horrifying place which I couldn't imagine in my wildest dreams.”
For months, she slept on dirt floors in crowded facilities with thousands of other Jewish women. In August 1944, Bohm was forced into slave labour in a factory in Germany until the Allied Forces liberated Europe in the summer of 1945.
Photograph of Hedy Bohm's and her parents when she was a baby (Bohm Family)
She always assumed her parents were alive, enduring circumstances similar to hers. It was only after the war ended when she learned the horrifying truth: her parents were murdered soon after they arrived in Auschwitz.
“Close to a million Jews were deported [there] to die, to starve and some -- a few for whatever reason, like me -- to survive.”
For more on Bohm’s life, listen to her account in the video above.
Wedding photograph of Hedy Bohm and her husband Irme. (Bohm Family)
Hedy Bohm and her daughter, Vicky.
Bohm immigrated to Canada in 1947, married and began a new life with her husband raising a family together. For decades, she found solace and joy in her children and her friends and took pride in Bohm's family businesses.
She had nightmares in the years after the Holocaust and when it came to her traumatic experience, she tried “burying it as deep as possible.”
On the left, Hedy Bohm and her husband, alongside friends visiting Niagara Falls in 1948.
But that sentiment changed in 2011, after a speech by then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in which he questioned the Holocaust in front of the United Nations General Assembly.
“Hearing that, it was like they stabbed me in the heart,” Bohm said. “I decided then and there that I would join other survivors who were already speaking their stories.”
Photograph of Hedy Bohm, with her husband, returning to the Auschwitz concentration camps. (Bohm family)
Over the roughly ten years, she’s done just that in schools across the country, all the while encouraging students to fight oppression and injustices wherever they are.
This week, due to COVID-19 restrictions, she’s been connecting with students via Outschool’s online teaching platform.
“The only thing I can contribute is my story and my urging [to] the young people to take things very seriously, to have self-confidence and to believe that they can make a difference,” Bohm said.
“Each and every one of us has something to contribute.”
More than one home has been damaged or lost due to a massive wildfire outside of the B.C. community of Fort Nelson, the mayor confirmed Wednesday.
A warning from a Saskatoon driver about using your fast-food app while in the drive-thru line — a trip to get some free lunch cost him a lot more than he bargained for.
An 'unrepentant' YouTuber has been ordered to pay $350,000 in damages as compensation for a 'relentless' campaign of defamation waged online against a business owner and his company, the B.C. Supreme Court has ruled.
Chief Robert Michell says relief isn't the right word to describe his reaction as the search begins for unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school he attended in northern British Columbia.
While it's unclear what these closures might mean for the 27 restaurants in Canada, Red Lobster is expected to file for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. this month.
A man from B.C.'s Lower Mainland has been sentenced to four years behind bars after shooting a sex worker in the back during a drug-fuelled 43rd birthday.
Nearly six dozen dogs were seized from a home Wednesday morning by the Winnipeg Humane Society. It is the largest known seizure of animals in the city’s history.
Of the $40-million Aiden Pleterski was handed over two years, documents show he invested just over one per cent and instead spent $15.9 million on "his personal lifestyle." The 25-year-old Oshawa, Ont. man was arrested and charged with fraud and money laundering on Tuesday.
A man with a long record of dangerous driving told investigators he smoked marijuana oil and took prescription drugs hours before he sideswiped a bus, killing eight Mexican farmworkers and injuring dozens more, according to an arrest report unsealed Wednesday.
When Adam Kirschner wrote 'Slap Shot,' he never imagined the song would be embraced by his favourite team.
A team is ready to help an entangled North Atlantic right whale in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
A $200 reward is being offered by a North Vancouver family for the safe return of their beloved chicken, Snowflake.
Two daughters and a mother were reunited online 40 years later thanks to a DNA kit and a Zoom connection despite living on three separate continents and speaking different languages.
Mother's Day can be a difficult occasion for those who have lost or are estranged from their mom.
YES Theatre Young Company opened its acclaimed kids’ show, One Small Step, at Sudbury Theatre Centre on Saturday.
An Ottawa pizzeria is being recognized as one of the top 20 deep-dish pizzas in the world.
A family of fifth generation farmers from Ituna, Sask. are trying to find answers after discovering several strange objects lying on their land.
A Listowel, Ont. man, drafted by the Hamilton Tigercats last week, is also getting looks from the NFL, despite only playing 27 games of football in his life.