Jewish roots

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2016 in review: thanks for the memories!

We started Lotta56sparks.ca on Lotta’s 107th birthday, November 28, not quite knowing how a blog dedicated to this humanitarian “pioneer” would be received.

Ottawa, 1943.

Since then, over 700 individuals have visited the blog!

Sincere thanks to everyone who has helped spread the word, with a special nod to the Lost Ottawa Facebook group.

Here are the most popular stories of 2016:

  1. Sharing a Lotta story: “She loved to party.”
  2. The most iconic – and confusing uniform in Canadian history?
  3. How did a Jewish refugee to Canada become a Unitarian “saint”? Part I. NB: Part II to be posted in 2017, stay tuned.
  4. 56 Sparks St – Canada’s most famous address?

 

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Little known Lotta facts for a Friday: her unique name

Lotta was born in Prague on November 28, 1909. She was raised as “Lotta Hitschmann” by two loving Jewish parents, Max Hitschmann and Else Theiner.

With the rise of the Nazis and the Munich Pact of September 1938, Lotta, an outspoken critic of the Nazis, began her perilous four year journey as a refugee. She first found a point of refugee in Brussels, where her life as “Lotta Hitschmanova” began in 1939.

Here is what Clyde Sanger has written in his biography of Lotta (page 20): Continue reading →

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Lotta and the Unitarian Connection – Part I

How did a World War II refugee, born into a Jewish family in Prague, Czechoslovakia, become a revered figure for Unitarians, a small liberal religious faith in Canada?

The following is a brief response to this question, taken from Clyde Sanger’s 1986 biography, “Lotta and the USC Story.” Continue reading →