Accession Number
2017-4-4
Source
Archival Accessions
Accession Number
2017-4-4
Material Format
text
Physical Description
1 text
Date
2010
Scope and Content
Accession consists of one self-published memoir written by Allan Weiss.
Administrative History
Allan Weiss (1929-2017) was born in the small town of Botiz, a small farming village in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains. He was one of four children to Izidor and Gizella Weisz. His father owned a general store. At the age of 14, he, his younger sister Magda, and their parents were taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau. His parents and sister were killed but Allan, old enough to be useful, was forced into slave labour as the assistant to a mason building Nazi industrial projects. He was able to survive the Holocaust and at the war's end made his way to a displaced persons camp. Allan was brought to Canada as a war orphan in 1947 under the auspices of the Canadian Jewish Congress. He travelled on the ocean liner the Aquitania. His plan was to eventually join his surviving brother and sister in the United States but instead he met and married his wife Grace Levine and had four children: Jason, Cari, Gerald and Russell.
Upon arrival in Canada he first boarded with the Montagnes family and worked at various jewellry stores. He later worked seven days a week selling aluminum windows door- to-door in the suburbs of Toronto. Eventually, he and a partner opened up a small window shop on Bathurst St. Ten years later, by the age of 29, he and his partners had factories across the country producing aluminum windows and related products. Following Grace's death in 1990, Allan remarried Lila (Shiner) Roher in 1991. Allan passed away on 2 Jan. 2017.
Use Conditions
Partially closed. See administrative notes for details.
Name Access
Weiss, Allan, 1929-2017
Source
Archival Accessions