Born: July 1, 1924 in Warsaw, Poland
Died: March 12, 2013 in Toronto, Canada
Family: he married Wanda on September 23, 1967 who had come from Poland for a visit. They had a daughter Joanna. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before the war: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Henryk Raston attended school starting in 1930. He was raised by a Catholic family and he didn\u2019t know about his Jewish background until he was in grade 5. He had few friends and felt isolated. In 1935 he started the first year of high school. He graduated from high school in 1939. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the War: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When war broke out, he was in Skolim\u00f3w, but on September 3rd<\/sup> his father sent a truck and brought the family to Warsaw. On September 7th<\/sup> they had to evacuate from Warsaw and the family travelled on a factory truck to Siedlce. When the Russians invaded they were in the village of G\u00f3rki and later in Pi\u0144sk. His mother became sick and was placed in the hospital in Lw\u00f3w. The father, as an engineer, was placed in a match factory. When the green border was opened the family made it back to Warsaw. Henryk, along with his sister were shipped back to the eastern lands in June 1940 and ended up deported by the Russians to Kotlas, a port on the D\u017awina River north of Archangielsk and finally to a camp deep in the bush. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After the amnesty the family made its way south through the Soviet Union and in February 1942 Henryk joined the Polish army and with the army he was shipped to Iran and then to Iraq. Somehow, he made it to a port on the Suez Canal and was shipped on the Mauritania to South Africa and then to America. In August he was in Rio de Janeiro. From Rio he travelled to New York and then to Halifax and then to England where he was assigned to the Polish Podhalian Light Infantry Battalion of 1 Polish Armored Division. As a driver, he took part in the Normandy Campaign and served until the end of the war. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the Fall of 1945, he was sent back to Scotland where he finished his schooling, converted to Christianity and changed his name. From 1948-1951 he studied electrical engineering at Polish University College, at the University of London. In 1951, he discovered that his older sister Rita and her husband Daniel were in Canada. Henryk came to Canada in June 12, 1951. In 1952 he received a BSc in electrical engineering from the University of Toronto. From 1952-1955 he worked for Ferranti Electrical Ltd. From 1955-1960 he took post-graduate studies at the University of Toronto. From 1960-1975 he worked for the Canadian Standards Association. From 1986-1995 he was involved in real estate. He joined the Association of Polish Engineers (Stowarzyszenie In\u017cynier\u00f3w Polskich) and Polish Combats\u2019 Association (SPK) in 1952. In 1955 he organized the Polish Alliance, Toronto, Credit union where he served as president and director. <\/p>\n\n\n\n author: Stan Skrzeszewski, Canada
After the War: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Source of information: SPK w Kanadzie, May 2014 (1\/195)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1292,"template":"","kraj":[46],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maczek.wirtualnemuzeum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/biogram\/1327"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maczek.wirtualnemuzeum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/biogram"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maczek.wirtualnemuzeum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/biogram"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maczek.wirtualnemuzeum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maczek.wirtualnemuzeum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"kraj","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maczek.wirtualnemuzeum.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/kraj?post=1327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}