Honourable senators, I rise today on May 1, which credit to Senator Linda Frum’s efforts, marks the beginning of the Canadian Jewish Heritage Month. This is a time to celebrate Jewish culture and to reflect on the significant contributions that have been made and continue to be made by many. Yom Hashoah, today is Holocaust Memorial Day.

Today I recognize the late Philip Riteman: A husband, father, successful businessman and Holocaust survivor who dedicated his life to promoting the message, “It is better to love than to hate.”

During the Second World War, Riteman and his family were captured by occupying Nazi forces in Poland and sent to Auschwitz. Only Riteman — prisoner number 98706 — survived. His parents, five brothers and two sisters were among the millions of Jews and Gentiles murdered in the Holocaust.

By the end of the war, Riteman had survived five separate concentration camps. He had been forced to transport the bodies of the dead and to build crematoria for them. In the final days before liberation, he and his fellow prisoners were used as human shields by the retreating Nazis. He was liberated in May 1945, at the age of 17, weighing a mere 75 pounds.

After the war, Riteman’s surviving aunts were able to contact him and encouraged him to settle in Newfoundland. Newfoundland had not yet joined Canada at the time and did not share our country’s prohibitions on Jewish immigration.

In his book Millions of Souls, Riteman discusses his love for the Newfoundland people and how they restored his faith in humanity, giving him so much, yet expecting nothing in return.

In 1946, he began his new life as a door-to-door peddler in his new home. Visiting Montreal, Riteman met and soon after married Dorothy Smilestein, who joined him in St. John’s. Their two sons are both graduates of Memorial University.

Riteman went on to build an important trading company and eventually expanded his operations to Halifax, where in 1979 he later moved.

Like many survivors, Riteman was, for many years, silent about what he had witnessed. For over 40 years, most of his wide network of friends, colleagues and customers knew that he was Jewish and came from Poland, but almost no one had known that he had survived the Holocaust.

It wasn’t until 1988, four decades after the Holocaust, that he started speaking about his experiences in the concentration camps. He spoke to silence Holocaust deniers who claimed that the extermination of 6 million Jews by the Germans had either never occurred or was greatly exaggerated. He spoke for those whose voices had been stolen from them.

For the remaining nearly 30 years of his life, Riteman dedicated himself to warning the world about the dangers of what he had lived. He bore witness to the ways in which unchecked hate can warp, pervert and deprave a society. Travelling to schools, universities, churches, military bases and other organizations around the world and across Newfoundland and Labrador, Riteman shared his painful memories with a commitment to a more just society.

For these contributions, he was awarded the Order of Nova Scotia and the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador. He also held several honorary degrees, including a doctorate in laws from Memorial University.

While completing an internship in St. Johns, I had the pleasure of breaking bread with this remarkable gentleman. At the time, I was renting an apartment from Ms. Judy Wilansky, who was a close friend of the Ritemans. Like many others, I was deeply moved by his articulate reflection on the horrors of his personal experience.

Riteman lived his 96 years on this earth with strength, compassion, deep respect and resilience.

Thank you, Philip Riteman, for your years of service to the public in educating young and old that love, not hate, can conquer the world.