Holocaust survivor Philip Riteman honoured by adopted home of N.L.

Philip Riteman survived Auschwitz and Dachau, but had nowhere to go after the Holocaust until pre-Confederation Newfoundland took him in.

On Wednesday, seven decades after he arrived, he will be given the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador for his life's achievements, including his book Millions of Souls, which tells his story from the Second World War to his life in Canada's easternmost province.

In 1946, Riteman emigrated to Newfoundland and Labrador. He started with nothing, selling goods door to door, and built a business and a family.

Most of his wide network of friends, colleagues and customers knew he was Jewish,and knew he came from Poland. But almost no one knew he'd survived the Holocaust.

Four decades passed before he felt he could speak, even though he suffered regular nightmares hauling him back toAuschwitz.

• Holocaust survivor Philip Riteman speaks about Auschwitz

"For 40 years, I never spoke about it. Now I'm speaking out. I worry for the young generation," he told CBC last year from his Nova Scotia home.

A teenager trapped in Nazi Europe

"I want you people to know about what did happen. What human beings could do, and how low the human beings could go and do this. To men and women and children. Innocent," he said last year.

To the Nazis,Ritemanwas prisoner 98706.

He was a teenager when the Germans arrived in Shershev, Poland, in 1941, according to a profile of Riteman prepared by Memorial University when he received an honourary doctorate of laws degree in 2006.

Ritemansaid the Nazis drove his family and others out of their town and into the ghettos before taking them to Auschwitz. Riteman lost his parents and five brothers and two sisters, along with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

He was liberated in May 1945 at 17, weighing just 75 pounds. He thought he had no family,and nowhere to go. In his 2006 address to Memorial, he recounted how his American liberators tracked down relatives in Canada and what was then the separate dominion of Newfoundland.

The Mackenzie King government in Ottawa refused him entry, but Newfoundland, where he had an aunt, welcomed him with open arms.

TheOrder of Newfoundland and Labrador is the province's highest honour.

Riteman, who spent 36 years on the island, won't be able to attend the ceremonybecause of illness, but his son will accept the award on his behalfat Government House in St. John's.