On Friday, March 7th, Bigelow 8th graders will hear the powerful story of the Holocaust survivor Elly Gotz. 

Elly Gotz was born in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, in 1928. At the age of sixteen, Elly hid with his family in an underground bunker in the ghetto of Kovno, preparing to die rather than be found by Nazis. After surviving nearly three years in the ghetto, where thousands from the Jewish community were murdered, Elly and his family refused to be the next victims. In the summer of 1944, Elly and his father were taken to Kaufering, a brutal subcamp of Dachau concentration camp. After liberation, Elly was determined to regain his lost youth and education. The Gotz family moved to Norway, then Zimbabwe, before Elly settled in Toronto in 1964.

In Toronto, Elly 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 eighty-nine, he fulfilled another aeronautical dream by going skydiving. Elly has educated thousands of students through his work at the Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre.

Elly speaks about his own experience in the Holocaust and draws conclusions leading to his views on tolerance and awareness of political trends.

Creative Arts and Sciences (CAS) presentations are sponsored by your generous donations to the PTO.