Impressions of Leopoldville, Congo

Heroes Remember

Impressions of Leopoldville, Congo

Transcript

The Congo was, it was a new experience I guess for any young soldier that went there because you were surrounded by jungle and yet in the city, Leopoldville, at that time was probably the largest city in Africa, over a million people. I mean it was a modern, concrete building, you know, a city. It was beautiful. But by the time I got there you could already see the jungle coming in on it because these people they didn’t, they were the servants of the Belgiques and they served them well and as long as they did. They got a little job. You cut the lawn. You serve the drinks. You make the meals you know, and they taught them how to do these things and the Belgiques lived like literally royalty. But when they kicked them out at that point they sat in the chairs that the Belgiques had sat in and wondered why they weren’t having mint juleps and why their grass wasn’t being cut.

Description

Mr. Dubinski describes the impact of the Belgiques being expelled from the Congo and in particular, from its capitol city Leopoldville.

William Dubinski

William Dubinski was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on August 17, 1930. As a youth, he and several friends became train hoppers, travelling from job to job by rail, often staying in “hobo jungles”. One of his stops was in Calgary and it was there that he enlisted in the Canadian Signal Corps. Mr. Dubinski became a teletype operator and later became a communications instructor with the rank of Master Warrant Officer. He served overseas in Germany and as a peacekeeper in the Congo. His Canadian service included being the computer centre senior non-commissioned officer (NCO) during the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) crisis and Telecom manager for the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, PQ.

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