Military Medal

Held by

Montreal Holocaust Museum via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)

Dates

[ca. 1939-1945] (indexed as 1939–1945)

Level

item

Extent

Military Medal : cast (moulded), engraved : Silver ; Ht: 0,2 x W: 3,2 x De: 3,2

Scope & content

Circular with a five pointed star in the middle. The edges have a raised line pattern on both sides. Narrative: Gerhart Adolf Maass (Hambourg 1918-Montreal 2009), also known as “Gerry”, was the youngest son of Adolf Maass and Käthe Elsbach. In 1935, summoned by his parents to leave Germany, Gerhart had no other idea in mind than coming to Canada. He was well supported by a distant cousin of his father, Rudolf van der Walde, who owned an import business in Hamburg with several subsidiaries around the world. The idea was that once hired, Gerhart could be transferred to the Canadian office of the company. After having worked in Sweden for the Swedish subsidiary, and only after obtaining permission to come to Canada, Gerhart had to return to Germany in 1938 in order to renew his passport and seek a visa at the Canadian Consulate in Hamburg. Gerhart came to Canada in November 1938 and tried to help his parents out of Germany, but in vain. He enlisted in the Canadian Army in 1942 and in 1944 received his certificate of naturalization, which allowed him to be accepted into the Secret intelligence services. Gerhart served in France, Holland and Germany where he was stationed in the town of Oldenburg, in the British Zone and became the personal assistant of Major Morris DF. He returned to Herford at the end of the war, and recovered the family business (Elsbach co.) which had been confiscated by NSDAP authorities in 1938. After Liberation, he accessed the archives of the Gestapo in Hamburg and found hundreds of documents relating to his family. He learned that after being sent to Theresienstadt ghetto, his parents were deported and murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. Gerhart was the last Canadian soldier stationed in Oldenburg and was given the Canadian flag hanging over the entrance of the camp; he later donated it to the Canadian War Museum. Gerhart returned to Canada in September 1946 and settled in Montreal.

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Genre / form

object

Format

Object / artifact

In the picture

Close-upMedalTagged automatically by a vision model; may contain mistakes.

Text in the image

P.I.E.0807MARSRead automatically; may contain mistakes.

Language

English

Harvested

2026-10-19T03:21:16Z · source datestamp n/a · andornot

Digital objects at the source

• imageOpen original at source ↗2010-7-16b.jpg
• imageOpen original at source ↗2010-7-16.jpg