With his Jewish mother weeping after hearing her brothers and sisters were murdered by the Nazis, Alex Polowin wondered what he could do. He wanted to try to help her remaining relatives.
โI felt I owed it to them try to save their lives.โ
Born to a Jewish family in Lithuania, his parents brought him to Canada when he was three years old.
14 years later, in the middle of the Second World War, he lied about his age to enlist in the Navy.
As he and his shipmates protected the supply routes from U-Boats, he stared down antisemitism.
Fighting the Nazis on the Atlantic crossing, the Murmansk Run, off Normandy on D-Day. Fighting the intolerance of his own shipmates.
When his father took him to the train to head off to the war, he looked him in the eye and said words Vince Speranza never forgot. As he was about to jump for the first time, those words came rushing back.
"Son, don't do anything to shame the family."
When they were surrounded by the Nazis in Bastogne, his wounded friend asked him for a drink. He scoured the bombed out local taverns until he found the fruitful tap.
Vince filled his helmet with beer and brought it back to Joe Willis.
Frank Slade was helping his Aunt Ethel run her gas station in Goldsboro, North Carolina, when there was a knock on the door.
Two men told him he had a choice between joining the U.S. Army for the Korean War or returning to Canada.
What did he do?
He returned to Canada. But at the Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto, he bumped into a buddy from Newfoundland.
Don Penney was in a Canadian Army uniform and about to head to Korea. He told Frank to join him.
The next day, Frank Slade signed up.
Frank and Don were from fishing villages in Newfoundland, their childhood far removed from the conflicts they read about in the newspapers and heard on the radio.
Frank's first job was carrying messages to people in town who didn't yet have telephones. His pay?