Joining the Service
Heroes Remember
Joining the Service
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Interviewer: You indicated earlier, Mr. Finestone,
that your 13th birthday was an important one.
Do I take it that your faith is of the Jewish faith?
That is correct.
Interviewer: Did that have any special significance
of what you knew about Hitler's Germany?
Well, pretty obvious. I'm out at the moment
lecturing school children on Remember Canada,
Canada's Project and many of them asked me,
“Why did you join the army?
You describe war as a terrible thing,
why did you do it?”
And I tell them the absolute truth:
If you were healthy, and you were
a Canadian, and you were Jewish,
there really was little choice.
It was something that just had to be done.
Interviewer: When you decided or
made it known that you were going
to become active, do you remember
what your mother, her reaction?
Do you remember her reaction?
Oh, very well! She was an American
as I told you.
And therefore, I was an American.
I was an American until I was 21 and
the day I turned 21, they took my citizenship
away from me because I was a commissioned
officer under oath of allegiance to the King.
But she said “You're an American!
You don't have to go!”
And I said, “I'm a Canadian and I'm
Jewish and I do have to go.”
Related Videos
Preparing for War
Mr. Finestone recalls his father’s advice to join the COTC as the war approached.
Training in Canada
Mr. Finestone was a Junior Officer. He describes the training he received and the training he provided in Canada to prepare himself and his men for war.
Crossing the Atlantic Ocean
Mr. Finestone describes the crossing to England and the efforts of a German broadcaster, Lord Haw-Haw to sap the morale of the soldiers.
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