Joe Schlesinger

Joe Schlesinger was born on May 11, 1928 in Vienna, Austria as Josef Schlesinger.

His family moved to the former Czechoslovakia, where he spent his early childhood. Living in Bratislava in the late 1930s, they witnessed the rise of Hitler. His Jewish parents sent 11-year-old Joe and his 9-year-old brother to Great Britain under a study program for Jewish children. Joe and his brother were among the more than 200 kids who traveled under guard by train through Nazi Germany in June 1939 on the so-called Kindertransport. Joe's parents were killed in the Holocaust.

One of his first journalism jobs was with the AP in Prague in 1948. When the Communist government began to arrest journalists, he was forced to leave his homeland again, and ended up in Canada. He worked as a waiter, construction worker, and seaman before studying at the University of British Columbia, where he worked on the campus newspaper. This led to a job at a Vancouver newspaper and then the Toronto Star. He moved overseas to join UPI in London and the Herald Tribune in Paris before returning to Canada, where he was hired by the CBC in 1966.

He was awarded the C.M. (Member of the Order of Canada) on October 19, 1994 for his services to communications in Canada.

He is known for his work on Children Saved from the Nazis: The Story of Sir Nicholas Winton (2016), Nicky's Family (2011) and Síla lidskosti - Nicholas Winton (2002). He was married to Myra Eileen Kemmer.