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The Canadian convoys kept driving until the German lines were overrun and there were no more camps to resupply. Cook fell asleep in his truck one morning. He woke up to find it surrounded by American soldiers. His war was over. He was going home.

Kerr was discharged in May 1945. He went home to Montreal. He lives there still, in a hospital for retired veterans, with his wife. Next month, he will be 96 years old.

“Now this thing is not documented,” said Kerr. “But Canadians saved a lot of lives.”

— With files from Gayathri Peringod in Calgary and Jacob Dubé in Toronto

A note on sourcing: Cecil Cook’s role as a Red Cross driver was first mentioned in historian Daniel G. Dancocks’ 1983 book In Enemy Hands, an oral history of Canadian prisoners of war. Cook’s quotes in this story were taken from a larger, mostly unpublished, interview Dancocks conducted with Cook, a tape of which is held with his papers at the Military Museums Library and Archives in Calgary. The quotes from Robert Kerr come from an interview he conducted with The Memory Project in 2010, only a small excerpt of which has been published before. They appear here courtesy The Memory Project, Historica Canada. Historian Hugh A. Halliday wrote about the Canadian relief drivers in 2002 for Canadian Military History. He generously shared several of the primary research sources he used for that piece with the National Post. Odette Bonnat Walling died in 2010. She was 89 years old. Her quotes in this story were taken from the French Vogue article “In Paris Now” published in May, 1945. The quotes from Denise DuFournier were taken from the 1948 English translation of her book Ravensbruck: The Women’s Camp of Death. Likewise, the quote from Karolina Lanckorońska comes from the 2006 English translation of her memoir, Those Who Trespass Against Us. Sarah Helm’s 2013 book, If This Is A Woman, is the definitive English language history of the Ravensbruck camp. She interviewed several survivors about encountering the Canadians and the journey to Switzerland. James Calhoun, archivist at the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada Museum & Archives, provided valuable assistance tracking down living relatives of the Canadians involved.