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Podcast: North Star with Ellin Bessner
Episode: These brothers retraced the steps of their great-uncle, a Jewish Canadian soldier who ‘died a hero’
Description: On Sept. 13, 2022, at the Holten Canadian War Cemetery in the Netherlands, an early Remembrance Day memorial service was held to honour the more than 1,000 Canadian soldiers buried there. They fell in battle in the spring of 1945, shortly before the Second World War ended, liberating the area from Nazi occupation.
Elliott and Jonathan Shiff were the only Jews on the trip.
They were commemorating their great-uncle, Sgt. Harry Bockner, a former fur salesman from Toronto who was killed when his light anti-aircraft gun crew came under attack during a manoeuvre codenamed "Operation Cannonshot".
More than 500 Canadians became casualties during that...