Born March 22, 1925   |   Budapest, Hungary

Died March 13, 2023   |   Calgary, Canada

An avid reader with a keen interest in history, Paul wrote about the history of the Holocaust and often shared his testimony with students in Pennsylvania. 

The son of a successful textile merchant, Paul grew up in a traditional Jewish home. He shared a room with his sister Ellie and loved reading, playing the violin and summering on Lake Balaton. On March 21, 1944—the day before Paul’s 19th birthday—his father Ernest was arrested for the “crime” of being Jewish while riding to work on a streetcar with his business partners, including one of his brothers. Ernest was interned and later deported to Auschwitz, where he was murdered. Forced into the #101/320 Hungarian Labour Battalion, Paul repaired war-damaged railway sites as a forced labourer. Daringly, in an effort to protect his family, Paul deserted his post to try and secure Schutz passes—protective visas issued to imperilled Jews by Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg. Unbeknownst to Paul, his mother Margaret and sister Ellie had escaped from a death march to the Mauthausen concentration camp and made their way back to Budapest, where they survived the remainder of the war in a Swedish safe house.

Paul was liberated by the Red Army in January 1945 and ran his father’s business until he left Hungary in 1949. After living in Austria for two years, Paul immigrated to Canada. Settling in Winnipeg, he worked for the CPR as a sleeping car porter and then in the galley. He later studied and worked as an accountant. Paul moved to England in 1967, returned to Canada in 1975 and “made aliyah” (immigrated) to Israel in 1978. There he met Philadelphian Ava Honigman. They relocated to Pennsylvania in 1981 and married a year later. Sadly, Ava passed away in 2003. In 2021, Paul moved to Calgary, where he had been preceded by his daughter and two grandchildren.