Holocaust memories vivid

Survivor, who arrived in Halifax as an orphan, returns to city with new book about the war

HALIFAX— Maxwell Smart was just 11 years old when he watched Nazis shoot his grandfather in the head.

It happened in 1941, but he relives those and many other horrifying memories in vivid detail every day. Smart is making his first visit to Halifax since arriving at Pier 21 as an orphaned Holocaust survivor in 1948.

The 88-year-old is visiting the city to discuss his newly published book, Chaos

to Canvas, and hopes sharing his personal story will help inspire positive change.

Smart’s trip coincides with Holocaust Education Week and happens less than a week after a gunman shouting antiSemitic slurs opened fire on a group of Jewish worshippers in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, killing 11 people.

Federal officials have charged Robert Bowers, 46, with 29 criminal counts. They include obstructing the free exercise of religious beliefs — a hate crime — and using a firearm to commit murder.

“My first reaction was shock. I was completely speechless. I said to myself, ‘My God, 80 years ago the same thing happened exactly. What’s the difference 80 years ago killing a Jew or killing a Jew today?’ Has nothing changed after 80 years,” Smart said in an interview, his voice shaking.

“I’m trying so hard (to educate) and writing the book and trying to go and teach the children to understand antiSemitism, to help. And nothing changes. This is the best example, looking at 80 years ago what happened to me and Saturday what happened there.”

Smart was 9 when the Soviets invaded his town of Buczacz, Poland, in 1939. Although that brought many challenges, nothing prepared his family for the Nazi invasion of 1941.

“The occupation of the Nazis was horror.” he recalled.