While the physical torture of the Holocaust was over, Elly’s mind remained in a dark place. He was full of hate for those who had done such horrible things to him and millions of other Jewish people across Europe. By the end of World War II, over fifteen million people had been killed by the Nazi regime. Six million of these were European Jews, singled out for genocide by the Nazis and murdered in mass killings at concentration camps as part of the Holocaust—what the Jewish community now calls the Shoah.
Slowly gaining back their strength, Elly and his father spent their days trying to find Elly’s mother and the rest of the family, sending frantic letters to the Red Cross. As they did this, Elly wondered: Could he ever live a meaningful life? Was he to be forever full of hate for the people who had done this? At night, when he couldn’t sleep, he thought about the hate that had begun to overwhelm him. He knew his entire life would be defined not only by what happened to him and his family during the war, but also by how he chose to let it affect his future. He had a choice to make.
•••
Four years later, Elly was in Johannesburg, South Africa, studying to become an electrical engineer at Witwatersrand (Wits) University. To do so he had to leave his parents who were living in Rhodesia (known today as Zimbabwe). Despite the difficulty of being away from his family after they had endured so much to be reunited, he was thrilled to be attending university and learning about two of his favorite subjects: physics and engineering.
For Elly, the best part of university was being surrounded by other people interested in science. He and his friends would come to class early to talk about everything happening in the world. At the time, major scientific fields were undergoing a revolution. Albert Einstein’s theories were still new, being hotly tested and debated in physics lectures around the world. The computer chip had only recently been invented and was paving the way forward beyond the primitive technology of World War II, and engineers in America and Russia were successfully launching rockets high enough to pierce the atmosphere and into space.
Elly would walk to class among Johannesburg’s world-famous Jacaranda trees that gave the Wits University campus a bright purple hue amongst the otherwise green landscape. As beautiful as the Wits campus was, his gaze was never limited to just the greenery. Whenever a plane flew overhead, Elly would stop. He would try to see if he could tell what kind it was. He was absolutely fascinated by flight. Before the war, his dream had been to become a pilot, to control a machine in the air and leave the ground behind.
After the war, things felt a bit different. Becoming a pilot didn’t seem realistic. First and foremost, Elly wanted an education. He decided to become an engineer, and his talents made him well-suited to chase this goal. He loved to create new ways of doing things, to invent machines to solve problems, and to question old beliefs. In short, he was a born inventor, able to think differently than others his age and always curious if things could be done a new way…though this habit of questioning things didn’t always do Elly favors.
One semester, when his class was learning about the makeup of waveforms, Elly doubted his professor’s claim that an irregular wave can be broken into an endless number of regular sine waves. The professor proceeded to schedule a lesson specifically to prove that the theory was correct. That day Elly happened to be late, arriving a few minutes into the lecture. As he walked into the lab, he immediately heard the professor say, “There he is, the doubting Thomas”—an old nickname for people who are skeptical by nature.
After the professor successfully proved the nature of irregular waves, Elly would have to put up with being called “doubting Thomas” for a few more years. But he wasn’t bothered by his reputation for being curious and questioning. He knew his curiosity drove his desire and ability to learn. Eventually it paid off. In 1952, Elly graduated from Wits University with a degree in electrical engineering.
After graduation he moved back to Rhodesia to reunite with his parents. At that time, the economy there was far from booming. Unable to find a job as an engineer, Elly put his degree to work and opened a radio repair shop. His people skills and technical know-how led to success, and he eventually opened a recording studio. In these years Elly met his wife, Esme, and had three children. When the opportunity presented itself, he moved back to South Africa to open and operate a plastics factory.
Sadly, South Africa in the 1950s brought new scenes of horror to Elly’s life. Racism was everywhere. Many of the white people of South Africa treated black Africans as second class, lesser humans. Elly had seen it before. He worried what would happen to his children if his family remained there, not wanting them to grow up surrounded by racism and the violence that follows it.
Because of the atmosphere in South Africa, Elly and his wife knew it was time to leave. Nothing good could come from being surrounded by so much hate, and as a recent immigrant Elly was powerless to stop it. In search of a better life for their children, he and his wife moved their family to Toronto, Canada.
They arrived in Toronto in 1964, where they bought a bungalow in the suburbs. Elly joined his brothers-in-law in operating a plastics factory in the industrial heart of the city. Canada was different from the other places he had lived, and the adjustment for his family was at times a challenge. But moving to North America came with perks as well. Elly noticed that the Canadian newspapers were full of news about NASA and spaceflight.
The engineer in him wanted to know everything—how NASA built the spacecraft, how they designed the fuel pumps, how they balanced such huge machines…everything. At the same time, Elly had never let go of his childhood dream. The aspiring pilot in him wanted to know what it felt like to sit on a rocket and launch into outer space.
In time, Elly became very successful in Toronto. His drive to learn, invent, and try new things soon paid off, presenting him with rewarding experiences and allowing him to support hundreds of people by providing them with well-paying jobs at his factory. He was also able to save for his children’s education, knowing they wouldn’t have the same difficulty he did getting high school diplomas or going to college.
Eventually, Elly and his family became Canadian citizens. He had lived in Lithuania, Germany, Norway, Rhodesia, South Africa, and now Canada. So, while he was now a proud Canadian, Elly Gotz was truly a citizen of the world. Ultimately, though, what mattered to him was not national identity or pride, but that he and his family were safe and happy. For this, Elly loved Canada. He became an active community member, volunteer, and a member of his synagogue. In the decade that followed, as a generation matured that had never experienced the Holocaust (including his own children), Elly began speaking publicly about the horrors of the Holocaust. Through his own story he would impress upon countless children the danger of one simple feeling: hate.
•••
It was a hot Sunday in July. Elly’s home was empty. The kids were at their cottage by the lake with Esme. He spent most of the day doing a mix of reading, fixing things around the house, and working in the yard. It was an incredibly warm day in Toronto—with the humidity it felt nearly 30°C (about 86°F) all afternoon.
After a few hours in the garden, it was about four o’clock. The summer sun was unrelenting, even as its angle was starting to allow for more shade behind the house. It was time for a break. To cool himself down during the day, Elly would make his way into the basement. While the basement was significantly cooler than the rest of the house, there was another reason he wanted to go down there.
Today was the day that NASA would be landing on the Moon, and the family’s brand new color TV was in the basement. Elly needed to keep checking in to see how the mission was progressing. He sat on the green basement couch and put his glass of water on the wooden coffee table in front of him. As condensation quickly formed around the outside of the glass, he turned on the TV.
The TV’s sound came on before the cathode ray screen had time to warm up and show a picture. Elly could hear newscasters describe the status of the mission. When the screen turned on, he saw that they were describing the landing procedure over images of NASA’s mission