During the last week, the houses selected throughout Canada received moving reminders from military members who fought and died in the last months of World War II.
Each direction received a postcard with the name, history and fate of a soldier, sailor or individual aviator who had lived there before enlisting in the war effort of Canada.
As part of his program “He lived where he lives”, the Juno Beach Center, the Museum of the Canada War in Normandy, France, issued postcards to 1,945 directions to commemorate the 80th anniversary of La Victoria on Europe Day on May 8, 1945.
In his home in Toronto, Gary Domski and his family recently received a postcard that commemorated the PTE. Peter Forbes Flett, a member of the Light Infantry of Canada by Highland Light who died on November 2, 1944, at the age of 20, two days after he was injured fighting in the Netherlands. Flett is buried in the Cemetery of the Adegem Canadian War in Belgium.
Domski said in an interview on Thursday that he was already familiar with Flett’s story before receiving the postcard due to a letter that had been left by one of the relatives of the late soldier. He detailed the history of the family at the residence, which Domski bought about 10 years ago.
‘It’s a big thing to unify the country’
He said he tries to ensure that his three children are aware of Canadian history, and added that obtaining the postcard “personally connects it to the event and sacrifice.”
“It definitely brings a different perspective to someone who lost his life, and being a father with a son hits you,” Domski said. “This (card) is a great reminder … and I think it’s a big thing to unify the country.”
Sal Falk, a spokesman for the Association of Beach Center in Juno, said the goal is to pay tribute to the Canada War, while ensuring that communities can connect with personal stories and the general history of war.
“It is a crucial moment in Canada, as we all know with a greater sense of pride and trying to discover our identity,” Falk said.
“I think this is a piece of Canadian history that everyone can meet, understanding that people who served the whole country … came from all areas of life, each neighborhood and each community.”
In the last two years, the Center conducted research using digitized library and archive files in Canada, as well as the archives of the Commonwealth War Gravas Commission to collect information about the service personnel, as well as its latest addresses known in Canada.
1,945 HONEO SERVICE STAFF
The data were referenced with the Post Canada records to confirm that the addresses for the service of 1945 chosen to be honored, who died between July 1944 and May 1945, still exist.
“We know that the number seems something arbitrary, but we think that with the symbolic number (year) of 1945, choosing 1,945 postcards to send it felt like the right thing,” Falk said.
Another postcard was sent to a direction in New Glasgow, NS, where CPL. Gerald Austin Ellis lived. Originally from Digby, NS, Ellis was a machinist at the nearby Trenton Industries steel plant before enlisting in the army in February 1944.
Ellis landed in Europe in September 1944 and fought in the Netherlands, where he was killed in Action on February 27, 1945. He is buried in the cemetery of the Canadian War of Groesbeek and is one of the more than 45,000 Canadians who died in the war, with about 14,000 dead in Europe during the last months of conflict.
After the carnage of the Allied rupture of Normandy in August 1944, the Canadian army participated in the search for the German forces through France and in Belgium before freeing the Netherlands and hitting Germany.
‘The answer was overwhelming’
Falk said the last postal campaign of the center is his third; Initially, the idea was conceived to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the D-Day in 2019, with an email by mail. A similar campaign was used in 2022 to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Dieppe’s raid.
“We discovered that the answer was overwhelming,” said Falk, who added that the campaign helps to the DAY Museum of Juno Beach in France to reach Canadians at home.
“There is a pilgrimage place for Canadians to go and learn more, but we know that not everyone can make that trip,” Falk said.
“Then this helps make sure that the story enters the Houses of the Canadians.”
