Transcript
[Text: Sam Heller offers his perspective on the story of his grandfather David Feldman’s immigration to Canada. He describes how David was training to be a dental mechanic, but instead applied for immigration as a tailor.]
Sam Heller: Well, I guess since he's passed now and, you know, my passport is good to go and my Canadian citizenship is in good standing, I don't think anyone's gonna come after me about this. But there was a, you know, he was in a displaced person's camp in Germany. I don't know the name at this point. I'm sure I could find it somewhere but I know he was in a displaced persons camp in Germany. And when he had an opportunity to either go to Israel or he had an opportunity to come to Canada. And in order to come to Canada, they were looking for specific folks with specific professions. I guess they weren't looking for dental mechanics at the time or else he would've applied for that 'cause that's what he was studying. And he and a bunch of friends decide, okay, well, they're gonna be tailors, they were gonna be garment workers. And they needed to pass some sort of test. And once again, this could just be sort of like folklore, I don't know. But apparently, they had someone do the test for them so that they could, you know, be approved. And yeah, that's kind of how that happened. He came into Canada as a garment worker but I don't think he ever worked in that at all. I think he worked in construction for a bit. He got, and really primarily, he was just trying to find a job as a denturist. And I was actually listening to these tapes that I have of him, and he's saying that he was really despondent, he didn't really know what to do. And he got a job at a meat-packing plant. Jack Diamond had a meat-packing plant. He went in and he got the job there. And later on that afternoon, somebody called him and said, "Hey, I need a dental mechanic." So that was it. That was, you know, and that's basically what launched his career right there. Yeah.
