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Leslie Mezei
- Accession Number
- 2022-5-15
- Source
- Archival Accessions
- Accession Number
- 2022-5-15
- Material Format
- textual record
- object
- Physical Description
- 1 folder of textual records
- 1 armband : white fabric ; 18 x 5 cm
- Date
- 1947-1948
- Scope and Content
- Accession consists of Leslie Mezei's certificate of identity in lieu of passport, issued on 2 Dec. 1947 by the Office of the Military Governor, US Zone of Germany. It contains Leslie's picture and signature, as well as the 13 Jan. 1948 Canadian stamp of arrival in Halifax. Also included is the armband worn by Leslie on his way to Canada, which says, "Sponsored by the Canadian Jewish Congress. Chief Welfare Officer Ethel Ostry-Genkind."
- Custodial History
- Records were donated by Leslie Mezei himself.
- Administrative History
- Leslie (Laszlo) Mezei was born in Budapest, Hungary, on 9 July 1931. After the war, he and his siblings stayed at the Leipheim DP camp, in Germany, and at a children's camp in Prien am Chiemsee, in Southern Germany. After going on the Exodus 1947 illegal immigration to then Mandatory Palestine, they were sent back to Prien, where a Canadian social worker signed them up for immigration. They arrived in January 1948 on board the USS General SD Sturgis, an American troop carrier that had been used for carrying refugees. They landed at Pier 21, in Halifax. Then, they took a train to Montreal, and, after spending some time at the YMHA, Leslie was taken in by the Winkler family, with whom he stayed with for five years. After completing his basic education, he enrolled at McGill University for a BSc in mathematic and physics followed by an MA in meteorology in Toronto, where he got married in August 1953 to his fiancée, Annie Wasserman, a Holocaust survivor from Poland. Leslie became a computer programmer in 1954 and a systems analyst in 1958. His wife, Annie, with whom he had two children, Frances and Michael, developed a brain tumor and died in January 1977. After Annie's death, Leslie started to work with the interfaith movement. He later married Kathy, a seventh-generation Canadian of English, Irish, and Scottish background. Between them, they have five children, ten grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. In 2021, Leslie was awarded a certificate of recognition signed by the mayor of Toronto, the president of the Interfaith Council, and the head of the Toronto Sufi Order International. In 2019, the Azrieli Foundation published the Holocaust story of his family in a book titled "A Tapestry of Survival."
- Descriptive Notes
- Physical Description note: Armband has been measured in flattened position.
- Subjects
- Holocaust survivors
- Refugee children
- Immigrants--Canada
- Name Access
- Mezei, Leslie (Laszlo), 1931-
- Places
- Germany
- Halifax (N.S.)
- Montréal (Québec)
- Toronto (Ont.)
- Source
- Archival Accessions