Pinchas Blitt

Pinchas Eliyahu Blitt was born to a Jewish family in the small town of Kortelisy, Poland (present-day Ukraine) in 1931 or 1932. The uncertainty is due to the fact that records were destroyed during World War II. On September 23, 1942, when he was nine years old, the entire Jewish population of Kortelisy was massacred by the Germans and their helpers. The Blitt family and a few others were the sole survivors of the community. They just barely managed to stay alive by hiding in the surrounding marshes. They later escaped to the nearby town of Ratno (Ratne). Pinchas's parents Mordechai Leib and Adele, together with other parents, sent their children to live with Christian Ukrainian families. Pinchas worked for farmers as a shepherd, sleeping in the stable at night. The rest of the Blitts fled to the forest, where they remained until the arrival of the Red Army in July 1944. Pinchas was reunited with his family after the war in a displaced persons camp in Austria. They immigrated to Canada in 1948, settling in Montreal, where he attended teacher’s college and law school. He married Gisele and the couple had three children. In addition to a 50-year career as a lawyer, Pinchas was involved with the Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre (DWYT) in Montreal for decades. He has had numerous diverse roles, including as the dancing Reb Yosef Loksh in the comedic The Sages of Chelm and the mysterious Messenger in The Dybbuk. His memoir A Promise of Sweet Tea was published on his 90th (or maybe 89th) birthday in 2021 by the Azrieli Foundation's Holocaust Remembrance Memoirs Program.