Vera Gara fonds

Vera (nee Pick) Gara (b. May 1, 1933, Vienna, Austria) is the only child of Hungarian parents Irma and Moric Pick. Vera’s parents both worked in a salami factory in Vienna owned by her father. The Pick family fled Austria in 1938 or 1939, after Vera’s father was arrested on false charges of fraud, and moved into Vera’s grandmother’s bungalow apartment in Szeged, Hungary. The family owned a radio which they used to secretly listen to English news broadcasts from London. In an interview with Carleton University in 2016, Vera recalled her father instructing her to tell anyone who asked that they were listening to music on the radio. After the German invasion of Hungary in March 1944, the more than 4000 Jews living in Szeged were confined to a ghetto. The Pecks’ bungalow, which was already inside the confines of the ghetto, became home to 17 people while a wooden wall was built outside their windows. Vera’s family were eventually forced to relocate to the small farming village of Loitzendorf by cattle car and truck, where the adults were forced to work cutting down trees in the forest. While in Loitzendorf, the Picks were helped by a local family whose young daughter secretly brought them food in the middle of the night. Vera and her family were then sent to another work camp at a stone quarry in Spitz an der Donau, Austria, in September of 1944. They stayed there only a few weeks before they were again forced to travel by cattle car to Bergen-Belsen, where they arrived on the 8th of December 1944 after a 9km walk from Hanover. Vera’s father passed away while the family was at Bergen-Belsen. Vera was eventually moved to Theresienstadt in March 1945, and was liberated in May or June of 1945. Following the end of the Second World War, Vera completed her high school education in Szeged, then moved to Vienna where she briefly attended language school. Sponsored by family friends, she moved to London, England and obtained her nursing qualifications at the West Middlesex Hospital (1954-1957). In 1959 Vera married George Gara (b. March 11, 1932, Budapest - d. July 15, 2022, Ottawa). George was also a Hungarian Holocaust survivor. In January of 1970, George obtained a job as an electrical engineer with Bell Northern Research (Nortel), and he and Vera immigrated to Ottawa. Vera and George have two children; Judith Bosloy and Susan Markovitz. While living in Ottawa, Vera continued to work as a nurse while participating in and chairing volunteer activities, committees and events. She became the Financial Secretary of B’nai B’rith Women Ottawa chapter 421 in 1972, and was president from 1977 to 1982. As part of her activities with B’nai B’rith Vera hosted council meetings and events out of her home on Island Park Drive, and she has been an active member of the Ottawa Carleton Committee League for Human Rights (OCCLHR) since its inception. Vera has also been active in the Ottawa Vaad, where she chaired the Holocaust Rememberance Committee from approximately 1984-1992. As part of this committee, she hosted events to commemorate the anniversary of Kristallnacht and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, as well as the annual Yom Hashoah ceremony. From the late 1990s to 2000s, Vera was Agudath Israel’s adult education co-chair. In addition to her committee work, Vera has also spoken at many schools in Ottawa and elsewhere about her experiences in the Holocaust, and of the dangers of racism and hatred. She has volunteered at the Ottawa Hospital Civic Campus since 1977, and has been an active member of the Jewish Christian Dialogue Group and Na’amat since 1983. Vera Gara has been a key figure in the efforts to recognize and honour Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish ambassador who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews near the end of the Second World War. Vera chaired the Raoul Wallenberg Commemoration Committee starting in 1982, which worked with the Minto Corporation to have a street named after Wallenberg in a new housing development. After hearing of these efforts, Nepean City Council also contacted the committee, and decided to name a park after Wallenberg. As a representative of the Raoul Wallenberg International Movement for Humanity in Ottawa, Vera was awarded as a Member, First Class, of the Royal Order of the Polar Star, a high honour bestowed by the King of Sweden for Vera’s extensive work towards human rights activities, especially those related to Raoul Wallenberg and his legacy. Vera organized multiple events to commemorate Raoul Wallenberg and his legacy, and she was the chairman of the Ottawa Raoul Wallenberg Lending Hand Award Committee from 1999 to 2002. Vera travelled to Israel to attend the World Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors in 1981. Prior to this she had been involved in a number of efforts to rebuild Israel. She also travelled to Budapest to represent Canada at the groundbreaking ceremony for a new Holocaust memorial in July 1988. In 2000, Vera was one of several Holocaust survivors living in Ottawa who were honoured for their contributions to Canada with a ceremony and dinner. The Memory of All That, a book written in 1982 by Ruth Latta, includes a chapter on Vera Gara.