plicity in rounding up Jews, and which made quite a stir in France. A University of Toronto professor for nearly 50 years, he also played a leading role in helping pry open the Vatican’s war-era archives on the Holy See’s record during the Holocaust. Bold and confident, Marrus was a natural subject, and the history teacher I always wish I’d had.
Roslyn Swartzman
Writers on this beat have to become instant experts in the subject’s field—or at least good enough to sound credible. Roslyn Swartzman , a respected Canadian artist whose work is in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada and the Musée des Beaux-Arts du Québec, died on Feb. 5 in Montreal. She was 91. Swartzman was primarily a printmaker but accomplished in painting, sculpture and
Sidney Cyngiser
historian. Always sartorially stylish, he was a piercing writer who co-wrote a history that revealed the extent of Vichy France’s com-
Dubbed the “Elie Wiesel of Calgary,” Sidney Cyngiser shared his story of tragedy and resilience with countless Alberta stu- dents and educators for decades, as our friends at the Alberta Jewish News noted in their obit. “He often said that he would retire when he reached the ripe old age of 100,” the story went on. “On June 27, Sid passed away at the age of 99.” Born in Lodz, Poland in 1924, he and his father were forced into slave labour. Cyngiser’s father succumbed to starvation and overwork, but his son endured, surviving beatings, malnutrition, and disease. He was the sole survivor of his family. A successful businessman and generous philanthropist, Cyngiser and his wife, Bronia, created scholarships devoted to human rights and funded the Holocaust Collection at the Mount Royal University Library. Obit writers often reach for superlatives and found them in Michael Marrus , among the world’s greatest authorities on France during the Second World War. Also con- sidered the dean of Holocaust scholars in Canada, Marrus, who died last Dec. 23 at 81, seemed the opposite of the dusty
Michael Marrus
80
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