By Jesse Robitaille
This column originally appeared in Canadian Stamp News (Vol. 47 #11) in September 2022.
A brief conversation with Toronto-based Holocaust educator, writer and filmmaker Eli Rubenstein has inspired me to dedicate this commentary to a fascinating stamp-related story.
Rubenstein serves as the long-time national director of Canada’s March of the Living. Each year, the non-profit community organization hosts a two-week educational experience bringing hundreds of Canadians to Poland and Israel to learn alongside Holocaust survivors. While he’s currently on medical leave, Rubenstein is the only person whose involvement in the March of the Living stretches back to its Canadian inception in 1988.
The stamp story begins nearly a century ago with Robert Engel, who Rubenstein called a “remarkable man.” Born in 1923 in Berlin, Germany, Engel fled his homeland as a teenager for Holland, where he “fought in the Jewish underground until he was caught by the Nazis and sent to Westerbork,” a Second World War transit camp, Rubenstein added.
"He was liberated by Canadian troops in the spring of 1945, and his moment of liberation is absolutely wonderful to behold. He talks about the Canadian troops singing a song. He didn’t know what the song was, but he said that he knew it was important, and later he said that it was the most beautiful song in the world.”
The song was O Canada.
“When he tells this story, he chokes up with tears and says, ‘As soon as I heard those words, I knew I was free.’”
Engel then moved to Toronto, where he served as a long-time volunteer with Scouts Canada and the Toronto Star’s Santa Claus Fund while working with the Scouts in Israel.
With deserving reverence, Rubenstein described Engel as “a wonderful and incredibly kind and generous human being.”
“He would say, ‘I’m Jewish and they’re Christian, but it’s a mitzvah to give light into children’s lives whatever religion they are.’ He was just an extraordinary human being.”
1995 STAMP
On Nov. 9, 1995, Canada Post issued a commemorative stamp honouring Holocaust survivors.
The 45-cent domestic-rate issue (Scott #1590) shows several Jews – Engel among them – who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust alongside contemporary artifacts, including his identity papers.
Engel donated his pre-war photographs and identity papers to Toronto’s Neuberger Holocaust Education Centre before they were sent to the Canada Post for the stamp's development.
Canada Post considers jazz pianist Oscar Peterson the first living person honoured on a Canadian stamp, a 2005 issue; however, Engel is one of several earlier examples whose depictions were chosen not for a specific commemoration but to represent a broad topic such as Holocaust survivors.
The 1995 stamp shows just half of Engel’s face, “and of course, Robbie was very honoured that his face happened to be chosen, but what’s even more interesting about this story is that an elderly stamp collector by the name of John Prince in Sarasota, Fla., was looking through a magazine that featured that stamp,” Rubenstein said.
“John Prince happened to go to the same Berlin school as Robbie Engel in the 1930s. At that time, Robbie Engel and his Jewish friends just disappeared one day. John Prince didn’t know what happened. He asked his teachers, but nobody told him.”
Prince recognized Engel’s face “even though it was only half of an image on a tiny postage stamp,” Rubenstein said. Prince then contacted the Holocaust survivor, and after confirming Engel's cameo, the men decided to meet in Toronto the following year.
“Robbie agreed even though he wasn’t so sure about meeting him since, obviously, during the Second World War, John Prince would have most likely gone on to join the German army to fight against the Allies,” according to Rubenstein.
“When they met, he found out something amazing: in fact, John Prince was only in Germany because his father was stationed there for business. Shortly before the war, they returned to England, and John Prince, in fact, served in the RAF (Royal Air Force) and fought for the Allies against the Nazis.”
Aside from what Rubenstein called a “touching ending where Robbie finds out that his childhood friend fought against the Nazis,” this recollection “reminds us of the preciousness of childhood friends and that no matter how many years have passed, we still maintain an unbreakable bond with them.”
“They will always hold a special place in our hearts because of our shared history.”
Six decades had passed since the two young friends had seen each other. But when just half of Engel's face appeared on a Canadian stamp, Prince immediately recognized him, Rubenstein added.
"Such is the exceptional reach and power of a childhood friendship."
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