WINNIPEG — Philip Weiss, a survivor who educated thousands of school children in the province about the Holocaust by sharing his painful personal experiences, died Sept. 3 at age 86.

At his funeral, in the packed Shaarey Zedek Synagogue, he was referred to by Rabbi Alan Green and Rabbi Shalom Rappaport as the “Elie Wiesel of Winnipeg.”

His younger brother, Leo, who, unlike Weiss, was spared the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, called him “a sensitive soul,” and “an unrelenting champion of those who could not speak for themselves.”

“He saw that his mission as a survivor of the Holocaust was to bear witness… He [Weiss] led the campaign to place a Holocaust memorial [statue] on the grounds of the Manitoba legislative building,” said his son in-law, Brian Schwartz.

“This was the first monument of its kind ever erected on public property in Canada,” said Weiss’ daughter, Francie Winograd.

Weiss was 15 and living at his parent’s home in Drohobycz, Poland, when the Nazis seized him and put him in his first concentration camp. He was imprisoned in three labour camps and two concentrations camps during World War II.

The retired award-winning furniture designer and craftsman spoke about the Holocaust at high schools and universities in the city and across the province. Weiss also gave free screenings of the movie Schindler’s List to hundreds of children.

He was able to connect to thousands of students, leaving many in tears after they heard his personal story.

He also provided financial assistance to students in the Asper Foundation’s Holocaust and Human Rights program, which sends young people to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

Weiss was also given an honorary doctorate by the University of Winnipeg in 2003 for his life’s work in educating young people about the Shoah.

There were two numbers Weiss said he never forgot. One was the number that the Nazis tattooed on him – 87226 – and the other was May 5, 1945, the day U.S. troops liberated the Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria where he was being held.

Last year, at age 85, Weiss self-published a book about his experiences in the Holocaust, titled Humanity in Doubt.  

Weiss’ “will and endurance” saw that this project was completed before he died, Schwartz said.

“On many occasions he [Weiss] rose to say Kaddish for those who had no relatives,” Schwartz recalled. “He was a loyal son of his God and his people,” a courageous, resilient man “who remained committed to his mission [to bear witness].”

Rabbi Green said that Weiss “was able to transform the darkness of the Holocaust into light.”

At the end of the war, Weiss was reunited with his parents, Solomon and Celia, as well as his sister Erna and brother Leo, all of whom survived the Holocaust.

Weiss’ family was “one of the few Polish Jewish families to survive [the war] intact,” Rabbi Green said.

For several years, Weiss, like many Holocaust survivors, didn’t talk about his experiences. “He kept the worst of all of his memories within him, close to his heart,” Schwartz said.

Lindor Reynolds, a columnist for the Winnipeg Free Press, wrote about Weiss on Sept. 6.

“This was a real man. This was a survivor determined not to be silenced,” Reynolds wrote. “Throughout his life through his determination and his courage, Philip Weiss ensured the terrible facts and lessons of the Holocaust would not be forgotten. Now that he’s gone, it’s imperative that history and his example not be forgotten.”

Besides two daughters, Weiss is survived by seven grandchildren, and his sister and brother. He was predeceased by his wife, Gertrude, and daughter Shelley.