Holocaust survivor Michel Mielnicki was born in 1927 in Wasikow, a few kilometers from Bialystok in north-eastern Poland. In 1945, he settled in Paris, where he served his apprenticeship in France’s fashion industry. In 1953, he emigrated to Canada with his wife and infant son. Within a short span of time, “Mr Michel,” as he soon became known, was one of Canada’s premier fur fashion designers, as well as one of his adopted nation’s most fervent Holocaust educators. In 1966, the Mielnickis moved from Montreal to Vancouver, where Michel gradually shifted his business interests from fashion to real estate. Holocaust education, however, remained a constant passion in his life. In 1995, with the help of John Munro, he began Bialystok to Birkenau, a final written witness to his horrific experiences at the hands of the Nazis.

JOHN H. MUNRO lectures in European economic history, medieval and modern, in the Department of Political Economy at the University of Toronto.