Born August 14, 1926   |   Karcsa, Hungary

Died June 17, 2003   |   Calgary, Canada

God is good to me and has looked after me throughout my life.

Only 13 years old when World War II began, Bill was 16 when he, his sisters Ibi and Elona and their parents Lajos and Regina were transported to Auschwitz. During selektions, Regina and Elona were among those deemed unfit for work and sent to the gas chambers. Lajos—a home builder and carpenter—told the Nazi officer that Bill and his friend Steven Blitz were also tradesmen. All three were forced into hard labour, remodelling a castle. As the Allies advanced, the Nazis sent the trio to the Flossenburg and Buchenwald concentration camps. Just one day prior to the liberation of Buchenwald, the Nazis retreated further, taking some 1,100 prisoners with them, including Bill, his father and Steven. Too weak to continue, Lajos perished. Against the odds, Bill and Steven—who endured a further 13 days—were two of only 90 to survive the death march. They were liberated by American troops on April 23, 1945.

Following the war, Bill reunited with his older sister Ibi in Sweden. In 1948, Steven Blitz, who had settled in Winnipeg, urged Bill to join him. Bill immigrated in 1949, working as a carpenter until the Winnipeg flood. He moved to Calgary in 1950 and met Holocaust survivor Alyse Swartspelc, whom he married the following year. They welcomed two daughters, Shelley and Elaine. While he worked hard as a homebuilder and real estate developer, Bill’s top priority was spending time with friends and his family, which grew to include three grandsons. He gave generously to charitable causes and commissioned the Holocaust memorial on the grounds of the Calgary JCC in the hope that the atrocities of the Shoah would never be forgotten.