Mr. Speaker, Canada's new National Holocaust Monument commemorates the six million Jews murdered by Hitler's Nazis, but the memorial is also dedicated to survivors whose will to live is driven by a passion to educate this and future generations.
Steve Hopman's entire family was murdered in the Shoa. He survived Birkenau and forced labour camps, and was liberated from Bergen-Belsen.
Mr. Hopman came to Canada after the war and is resident now at Montreal's Mount Sinai Hospital, resisting terminal cancer.
Mr. Hopman had a last wish to visit the new National Holocaust Monument with Laura Grosman, the young Thornhiller who had a dream, and with former MP Tim Uppal who sponsored the bill to create the memorial. Mr. Hopman accomplished that visit today, and is on Parliament Hill now campaigning still to ensure that such horror and inhumanity happens never again.