The Department of History, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, and the Israel and Golda Koschitzky Centre for Jewish Studies welcome the renowned speaker Elly Gotz for a talk on his experiences during the Holocaust.
On March 25, Gotz will present “To Dachau and Back to Live” from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Zoom
Gotz was born on March 8, 1928, in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania. After the war, his family lived in Germany, desperate to emigrate; in the spring of 1947, they were accepted to Norway as refugees, and later that year they were able to immigrate to Zimbabwe to join extended family members.
Gotz eventually moved to Johannesburg to continue his education, graduating from the University of the Witwatersrand with a bachelor of science in engineering degree. In South Africa, Elly created new businesses in entertainment and sound recording, and then worked in the leather and plastics industries. He married Esme Cohen in 1958 and they, along with their three children, immigrated to Toronto in 1964.
In Toronto, Gotz established a number of different businesses and achieved his lifelong dream of becoming a pilot, later moving on to glider flying. In 2017, at the age of 89, he fulfilled another aeronautical dream by going skydiving.
Gotz has educated thousands of students through his work at the Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre.
A survivor of both the Kovno ghetto and the Dachau concentration camp, he has given presentations about his life to thousands of people over many years of service in the community, and has also written a memoir, Flights of Spirit.
To register for the event, visit https://yorku.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_a3Ab128YQS6lP6zki_83Cw.