Gershon Willinger is featured in an article in the Spring 2017 edition of The Atlantic Jewish Council’s (AJC) Shalom magazine. He was a featured speaker at an event co-hosted by AJC and the Sgoolai Israel Synagogue.
The article states: “Gershon was born in Amsterdam in 1942 of Jewish parents who had fled Nazi Germany. His personal account of his survival began when he was an infant and he was hidden by a non-Jewish family of the Dutch resistance. He was transported to several concentration camps prior to his liberation at the age of three, by the Red Army in 1945. He and his older sister survived, but his parents were murdered in Sobibor. Gershon returned to Holland where after several difficult years he was adopted. Eventually he immigrated to Israel at the age of 18 and served in the paratroopers of the IDF. On completion of his military service he pursued a degree in Social Work and worked with rehabilitating young offenders and street gangs. He finished his Master of Science degree in the U.S. He met his wife Jane in London and they married in Israel. In 1977 they came to live in Canada. They have three children and seven grandchildren. Today Gershon serves as a speaker for the Holocaust Centre of Toronto and the Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal center. As well, he volunteers at Baycrest in Toronto, working with the elderly.”
A series of video interviews with Willinger can be found on the website of the Crestwood Preparatory College, a high school in Toronto. He also has a profile on The Holocaust Survivor Memoirs Program website, which contains a photo of him in Israeli military uniform. In July 2023, The Canadian Jewish News published an article titled, “How a German high school helped Toronto Holocaust survivor Gershon Willinger learn precious new details about his family.”
