N.L. to honour Auschwitz survivor

LIFE ACHIEVEMENTS

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. • Philip Riteman survived Auschwitz and Dachau, but had nowhere to go after the Holocaust until pre-Confederation Newfoundland took him in.

On Wednesday, seven decades after he arrived, he will be given the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador for his life’s achievements, including his book Millions of Souls, which tells his story from the Second World War to his life in Canada’s easternmost province.

“I found humanity in Newfoundland. People were so kind to me. People helped me, people kept me in boarding houses, wouldn’t charge me a penny. They fed me. And I’m very happy I came to Newfoundland,” Riteman told Newfoundland’s VOCM radio from Nova Scotia, where he now lives.

Riteman, who spent 36 years in Newfoundland, won’t be able to attend the ceremony because of illness, but his son will accept the award on his behalf.

To the Nazis, Riteman was prisoner 98706.

He was a teenager when the Germans arrived in Shershev, Poland, in 1941, according to a profile of Riteman prepared by Memorial University when he received an honorary doctorate of laws degree in 2006.

He said the Nazis drove his family and others out of their town and into the ghettos before taking them to Auschwitz. Riteman lost his parents and five brothers and two sisters, along with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

“I’m the only survivor. Many times I wish I didn’t survive — why me?” he told VOCM.

He was liberated in May 1945 at 17, weighing just 75 lbs. He thought he had no family and nowhere to go. In his 2006 address to Memorial, he recounted how his American liberators tracked down relatives in Canada and what was then the separate dominion of Newfoundland.

The Mackenzie King government in Ottawa refused him entry, but Newfoundland, where he had an aunt, welcomed him with open arms, he said.

He went on to become a successful businessman, and moved to Nova Scotia in 1990. But he will always be a Newfoundlander, he told VOCM.

“I think about Newfoundland all the time. People ask me where I’m from, I say, I’m a Newfie boy,” he said.

Riteman will receive the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador, the province’s highest honour, at Government House in St. John’s.

Philip Riteman