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205482Capt. Howard Simon Wainberg
Canadian Army Royal Canadian Engineers
from:Toronto
My Great uncle Howard took part in the liberation of Holland and its transit camps at the end of WW11. During the liberation of the camps (Westerbork?), the Jewish prisoners were tearing the yellow stars off their uniforms. My Uncle Howie approached one of them and asked if he could have it. I suspect they spoke Yiddish, as our family is Jewish, and Yiddish was the universal language of Ashkenazi Jews. The interesting thing about this particular star is that the word for Jew is not 'Jude', but 'Juis', the French word for Jew. The prisoner obliged, and Uncle Howie brought it back to Canada and gave it to his sister, my Grandmother Lillian. Many decades later after the family moved to Los Angeles, (Uncle Howie included), Grandma gave it to me. I would very much like to know what regiments took part in the liberation of Holland as I don't know which one my Great uncle served in. I would appreciate any information you could give me on finding his regiment. I now live in the UK, and have added the star and the story of Uncle Howie in the BBC's online archive of The History of the World in a Hundred Objects.
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